Clandestine aid to dissidents will serve to alienate and close off discourse on policy  Reform in oppressive regimes, or ones that have less than stellar democratic and human rights records that might precipitate an uprising, is often slow in coming, and external pressures are generally looked upon with suspicion. The most effective way for Western countries to effect change is to engage with repressive regimes and to encourage them to reform their systems. By not directly antagonizing, but instead trading, talking, and generally building ties with countries, Western states can put to full use their massive economic power and political capital to good use in coaxing governments toward reform. 1 Peaceful evolution toward democracy results in far less bloodshed and instability, and should thus be the priority for Western governments seeking to change the behaviour of states. Militant action invariably begets militant response. And providing a mechanism for armed and violent resistance to better evade the detection of the state could well be considered a militant action.  The only outcome that would arise from this policy is a regime that is far less well disposed to the ideas of the West. This is because those ideas now carry the weight of foreign governments seeking actively to destabilize and abet the overthrow of their regimes, which, unsurprisingly, they consider to be wholly legitimate. A policy of flouting national laws will demand a negative response from the regimes, leading them to take harsh measures, such as curtailing access to the internet at all in times of uprising, which would be a major blow to domestic dissidents who, even with heavy censorship, still rely on the internet to organize and share information. This action would serve simply to further impoverish the people of useful tools for organization and uprising, such as occurred in Russia when the government ejected American NGOs they perceived as trying to undermine the regime. 2  1 Larison, D. 2012. “Engagement is Not Appeasement”. The American Conservative. Available:   2 Brunwasser, M. “Russia Boots USAID in a Big Blow to Obama’s ‘Reset’ Policy”. September 2012.