In international relations, countries often use covert methods to exert pressure or threaten other countries without engaging in open hostile actions. Here are some examples: 1. **Economic sanctions and blockades**: Although the sanctions themselves may be public, the specific implementation details and effects are often hidden, such as restricting bank transactions, freezing assets or imposing trade barriers. 2. **Cyber attacks**: Using cyber attacks to damage another country's critical infrastructure, steal sensitive information or influence public opinion, these actions are often difficult to immediately trace back to the specific perpetrators. 3. **Intelligence activities**: Gathering confidential information about other countries through espionage, or using false information and propaganda to influence other countries' political stability and policy decisions. 4. **Backdoor diplomacy**: This involves conveying threats or pressure to a government in private, which may be carried out through informal channels or third countries, with the intention of avoiding direct confrontation. 5. **Energy control**: Using control over key resources (such as oil and gas) to exert pressure, especially on countries that rely on these resources. 6. **Funding the opposition or armed groups**: Secretly funding or supporting anti-government forces in a country in order to create instability in that country. 7. **Military exercises and deployments**: Conducting military exercises or increasing troops in sensitive areas as a show of force or disguised threat rather than direct military action. 8. **Economic manipulation**: Using exchange rates, tariffs, and other economic means to create economic instability and force the other government to compromise. These methods are not easily directly accused of aggression or hostility, but can effectively put pressure on the target country to achieve diplomatic or strategic goals.