Clandestine operation

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Clandestine operation

A clandestine operation is an intelligence

Intelligence

Intelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to problem solving, to think abstraction, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to Learning....
or military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its nation to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or Threat of force ....
operation

Military operation

This article describes three distinct, but related terms: military operations, Operations as military events, and operational level of war....
carried out in such a way that the operation goes unnoticed.

The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms is a compendium of terminology used by the United States Department of Defense ....
(Joint Publication JP1-02, dated 5 January 2007) defines "clandestine operation" as "An operation sponsored or conducted by government

Government

Government is the body within any organization that has the authority to make and the power to enforce laws, regulations, or rules. Typically, the government refers to a civil government -- local, provincial, or national -- but commercial, academic, religious, or other formal organizations are also administered by governing bodies....
al departments or agencies

Government agency

A government agency is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an intelligence agency....
in such a way as to assure secrecy or concealment. A clandestine operation differs from a covert operation

Covert operation

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Encyclopedia

A clandestine operation is an intelligence

Intelligence

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its nation to use force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or Threat of force ....
operation

Military operation

Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms

Government

Government agency

Covert operation

A covert operation is a military, Military intelligence, or Politics activity carried out in such a way that the identity of the sponsors of the operation is concealed or kept secret....
in that emphasis is placed on concealment of the operation rather than on concealment of the identity of the sponsor. In special operations, an activity may be both covert and clandestine and may focus equally on operational considerations and intelligence-related activities. See also covert operation; overt operation" (JP 3-05.1).

The bulk of clandestine operations are related to the gathering of intelligence

List of intelligence gathering disciplines

Intelligence Gathering Disciplines...
, typically by both people (Clandestine HUMINT

Clandestine HUMINT

A wide range of roles can be played by clandestine HUMINT sources. This definition includes the classic spy who collects intelligence, but also couriers and other personnel, that handle their secure communications....
) and by hidden sensor

Sensor

A sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument. For example, a mercury thermometer converts the measured temperature into expansion and contraction of a liquid which can be read on a calibrated glass tube....
s. Placement of underwater or land-based communications cable taps

Telephone tapping

Telephone tapping is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The telephone tap or wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was applied to the wires of the telephone line being monitored and drew off or tapped a small amount of the electrica...
, camera

Camera

A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies. The term comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism of projecting images where an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system; the modern camera evolved from the camera obscura....
s, microphone

Microphone

A microphone, sometimes referred to as a mike or?more recently?mic, is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal....
s, traffic sensors, monitors such as sniffer

Sniffer

Sniffer may refer to* a Packet analyzer* a device to detect hydrocarbons, that imitates the capabilities of a nose...
s, and similar systems require that the mission go undetected and unsuspected. Clandestine sensors may also be on unmanned underwater vehicle

Unmanned underwater vehicle

Unmanned underwater vehicles can be divided into two categories:* Remotely operated underwater vehicles , controlled by a remote human operator...
s, reconnaissance (spy) satellites

Spy satellite

A spy satellite is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or espionage applications. These are essentially Space observatory that are pointed toward the Earth instead of toward the stars....
(such as Misty

Misty (classified project)

Misty is reportedly the name of a classified project by the United States National Reconnaissance Office to operate stealthy reconnaissance satellites....
), low-observability unmanned aerial vehicle

Unmanned aerial vehicle

File:MQ-9 Reaper in flight .jpgAn unmanned aerial vehicle is an unpiloted aircraft. UAVs come in two varieties: some are controlled from a remote location, and others fly autonomously based on pre-programmed flight plans using more complex dynamic automation systems....
s (UAV), or unmanned detectors

Measurement and Signature Intelligence

Operation Igloo White

Operation Igloo White was a covert United States Air Force electronic warfare operation conducted from late January 1968 until February 1973, during the Vietnam War....
and its successors), or hand-placed

Measurement and Signature Intelligence

Measurement and Signature Intelligence, or MASINT, refers to list of intelligence gathering disciplines activities that bring together disparate elements that do not fit within the definitions of the major disciplines mentioned above....
by clandestine human operations.

The terms clandestine and covert are not synonymous. As noted in the definition (which has been used by the United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
and NATO

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization , also called the Atlantic Alliance, is a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949....
since World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
) in a covert operation the identity of the sponsor is concealed, while in a clandestine operation the operation itself is concealed. Put differently, clandestine means "hidden," while covert means "deniable." The term stealth
Stealth

Stealth may refer to:Stealth technology, technology used to conceal ships, aircraft, and missiles*Stealth aircraft, aircraft which use stealth technology...
refers both to a broad set of tactic

Tactic

Tactic may refer to:*Military tactics*Political tactics*Tactical bombing*Chess tactics*Tactical wargame*Tactic , a conceptual action used by a military unit to achieve a specific objective...
s aimed at providing and preserving the element of surprise and reducing enemy resistance. It can also be used to describe a set of technologies

Technology

Technology is a broad concept that deals with an animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species' ability to control and adapt to its Natural environment....
(stealth technology

Stealth technology

Stealth technology also known as LO technology is a sub-discipline of military electronic countermeasures which covers a range of techniques used with stealth aircraft, stealth ship, submarines, and missiles, in order to make them less visible to radar, infrared, sonar and other detection methods....
) to aid in those tactics. While secrecy and stealthiness are often desired in clandestine and covert operations, the terms secret and stealthy are not used to formally describe types of missions.

Some operations may have both clandestine and covert aspects, such as the use of concealed remote sensors or human observers to direct artillery

Artillery

Artillery is a military Combat Arms which employs any apparatus, machine, an assortment of tools or instruments, a system or systems used as weapons for the discharge of large projectiles in combat as a major contribution of fire power within the overall military capability of an armed force....
attacks and airstrike

Airstrike

An airstrike is a military strike by air forces on either a suspected or a confirmed enemy ground position. Airstrikes are commonly delivered from aircraft such as bombers, ground attack aircraft, strike fighters, and helicopters....
s. The attack is obviously overt (coming under attack alerts the target that he has been located by the enemy), but the targeting component (the exact method that was used to locate targets) can remain covert.

In World War II

World War II

Cryptanalysis

Cryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information, without access to the secret information which is normally required to do so....
of radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic radiation with frequency below those of visible light.Electromagnetic radiation radio propagation by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space....
communication, were attacked only if there had been aerial reconnaissance in the area, or, in the case of the shootdown of Admiral

Naval ranks of the Japanese Empire during World War II

The following graphs present the rank insignia of the Japan navy during World War II. These designs had been used between the years 1931 to 1945, but were discontinued after World War II, when the Imperial Japanese Navy had been dissolved....
Isoroku Yamamoto

Isoroku Yamamoto

Admiral of the Fleet was the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II, a graduate of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and a student of the U.S....
, where the sighting could be attributed to the Coastwatchers

Coastwatchers

The Coastwatchers, also known as the Coast Watch Organisation, Combined Field Intelligence Service or Section "C" Allied Intelligence Bureau, were Allies of World War II military intelligence operatives stationed on remote Pacific islands during World War II to observe enemy movements and rescue stranded Allied personnel....
. During the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina Wars, the Vietnam Conflict, or often in Vietnam the American War occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1959 to April 30, 1975....
, trucks attacked on the Ho Chi Minh trail

Ho Chi Minh trail

Ho Chi Minh Trail The Ho Chi Minh trail was a path that ran from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the Republic of Vietnam through the neighboring kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia....
were completely unaware of some sensors, such as the airborne Black Crow

Radiofrequency MASINT

Radiofrequency MASINT is one of the six major disciplines generally accepted to make up the field of Measurement and Signature Intelligence , with due regard that the MASINT subdisciplines may overlap, and MASINT, in turn, is complementary to more traditional intelligence collection and analysis disciplines such as SIGINT and IMINT....
device that sensed their ignition. They could also have been spotted by a clandestine human patrol. Harassing and interdiction (H&I) or free-fire zone

Free-fire zone

A free-fire zone in U.S. military parlance is a fire control measure, used for coordination between adjacent combat units. The definition used in the Vietnam war by US troops may be found in field manual FM 6-20:...
rules can also cause a target to be hit for purely random reasons.

Until the 1970s, clandestine operations were primarily political in nature, generally aimed at assisting groups or nations favored by the sponsor. Examples include U.S. intelligence involvement with German and Japanese war criminals after World War II

U.S. Intelligence involvement with German and Japanese War Criminals after World War II

While the United States was involved in the prosecution of war criminals, principally at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo, the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, and other judicial proceedings, US military and intelligence agencies protected some war criminals in the inte...
. Today these operations are numerous and include technology-related clandestine operations.