Military campaigns by external powers, combined with psychological warfare against authoritarian regimes, can be highly effective in weakening morale, encouraging dissent, and creating instability. However, if poorly calibrated, it may also generate excessive excitement and emotional overreaction among the population, ultimately exposing opposition networks to the regime’s security apparatus. In highly totalitarian systems, emotional mobilization without sufficient operational security, discipline, and organizational protection can unintentionally strengthen the regime rather than weaken it.A real-world example from Iraq illustrates this danger clearly. During Saddam Hussein’s rule, the Iraqi National Congress radio broadcasts into Iraq, operating from Kurdistan in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War and Saddam Hussein’s defeat in Kuwait, frequently reached young Iraqi Army officers, including some at middle and relatively senior ranks. Motivated by fiery anti-regime messaging, several crossed into Kurdistan at enormous personal risk and volunteered to organize coup attempts or destabilize the regime from within their military units. Yet in many cases, we advised them to quietly return and abandon such plans. We understood Saddam Hussein’s extraordinary surveillance capabilities and the vast network of informants embedded throughout the military and Iraqi society. The probability that these officers would eventually be exposed, arrested, tortured, and executed was extremely high.