Are there any historical antecedents involving covert equipment sabotage?
Yes. In an excellent Center for the Study of Intelligence piece entitled “The Farewell Dossier,” former National Security Council official Guy Weiss tells the story of how US intelligence sabotaged various Soviet technical programs in the 1980s. According to Weiss, “the Soviets trailed Western standards by more than a decade” when it came to computers and high-end electronics. As a result of this handicap, the KGB and GRU operated a remarkably successful agency called Line X “to obtain technical and scientific knowledge from the West.” From the article: Since 1970, Line X had obtained thousands of documents and sample products, in such quantity that it appeared that the Soviet military and civil sectors were in large measure running their research on that of the West, particularly the United States. Our science was supporting their national defense. Losses were in radar, computers, machine tools, and semiconductors. Line X had fulfilled two-thirds to three-fourths of its collection req
