Counterintelligence state
![Russian President Vladimir Putin and former FSB director Nikolai Patrushev at a meeting of the board of the Federal Security Service in 2002.](/Images/godic/202502/10/Vladimir_Putin_18_January_2002-21312.jpg")
Counterintelligence state (sometimes also called intelligence state, securocracy or spookocracy) is a state where state security service penetrates and permeates all societal institutions including the military. The term has been applied by historians and political commentators to the former Soviet Union, the former German Democratic Republic, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the USA, especially after the Global surveillance disclosures and post-Soviet Russia under Vladimir Putin.