Establishing control over the political institutions of the colonized people: from military intervention and annexation to puppet administrations and sham treaties. The goal is to replace the people's agency with external rule, retaining decorative local forms where convenient.
| ID | Name | Description | |
| T0015 | Bribery of Elites | Aggressors may use systemic corruption and the distribution of privileges, titles, and large-scale financial resources to win over members of the target state's top leadership, intelligentsia, and military ranks. This technique permeates every stage of colonization: from preparation for seizure (recruiting agents of influence) to the seizure of governance (sabotage during defense) and institutional consolidation (buying the loyalty of a puppet government). By encouraging the personal ambitions of the elite at the expense of national interests, the colonizer destroys the local population's capacity for organized resistance. | |
| T0039 | Collusion with a Third Party | Aggressors may conclude secret or open diplomatic agreements with other geopolitical players on the division of spheres of influence, completely ignoring the sovereignty and interests of the Indigenous people. This technique is used for diplomatic preparation for seizure and the subsequent seizure of governance. Deals made behind the back of the colonized society allow the aggressor to deprive it of potential international allies, legitimize the occupation at the foreign-policy level, and dismember the territories of the local population unimpeded. | |
| T0008 | Deprivation of Agency | Aggressors may deliberately deny an Indigenous people the right to independent political, legal, and historical existence. At the ideological level, this manifests in the dissemination of narratives about the colonized society's lack of agency, which serves the legitimization of domination. At the diplomatic and administrative level, the technique is implemented through the unilateral abolition of sovereignty, the annulment or rewriting of previously concluded international treaties, and the shift of relations from equal footing to a format of direct diktat, which ensures the institutional seizure of governance and the legal consolidation of the occupation. | |
| T0118 | Extermination on a Territorial Basis | Aggressors may carry out the physical extermination of a population not on the basis of the victims' political views or ethnicity, but totally — solely by virtue of their presence in a given territory. To wipe pockets of resistance off the face of the earth, carpet bombing of residential areas, deliberate mass shootings of residents, and other methods may be employed. | |
| T0147 | Forced Registration of Subjecthood | Aggressors force the leaders of colonized societies to formally codify their subordinate status in law. This process takes place under economic or military pressure, and the terms of the pre-drafted treaties are not open to negotiation. To ensure legitimacy in the eyes of the local population, the colonizer often demands that an oath of allegiance be sworn according to the religious customs of the subjugated peoples themselves. A historical example of this practice is the shert — an oath of allegiance whose legal codification was often accompanied by the surrender of hostages from among relatives or the local nobility. In some cases, citizenship of the metropole is a necessary condition for freedom of movement, for the ability to go to court, or for not being expelled on the grounds of illegal presence in territory annexed by the colonizer. | |
| T0151 | Imposition of Alien Governance | The occupation administration artificially deprives subordinated societies of the right to self-governance, appointing loyal representatives of foreign elites over them. Unlike the creation of puppet governments (T0037), this technique does not aim to simulate a civil conflict or to create the appearance of a legitimate local authority. The use of alien overseers is employed by the metropole for open domination, the destruction of the Indigenous people's traditional social ties, and the uninterrupted mobilization of resources. | |
| T0132 | Infiltration of Legitimate Political Structures | The aggressor deliberately infiltrates its agents and loyalists into the victim's already existing, legitimate representative bodies, parties, or congresses. This makes it possible to hijack the governance of the structure from within, sabotage its work, or force it to make decisions in the aggressor's interests. | |
| T0104 | Mass Killings of Civilians | Aggressors may carry out large-scale, targeted massacres of unarmed civilians. This form of radical terror is used to physically eliminate resistance (neutralization of defenses) and to achieve a rapid forcible seizure of governance over a territory by creating an atmosphere of total fear and paralyzing the will to defend. | |
| T0019 | Military Intervention | Aggressors may resort to the direct and open use of armed forces to invade the territory of another state or region. The deployment of the army is used to overthrow the legitimate government, change the political regime, or physically establish control over key infrastructure and administrative centers. | |
| T0018 | Proxy War | Aggressors may covertly initiate and wage combat operations on the territory of the target region through the hands of puppet armed formations, radical groups, or mercenaries. This technique is used for the forcible seizure of governance without a formal declaration of war. Sponsoring, arming, and coordinating illegal detachments allows the colonizer to artificially create the illusion of an internal civil conflict, destroy the state institutions of the local population, and establish military control over the territory while formally denying its direct involvement. | |
| T0037 | Puppet Government | Aggressors may artificially create and install fully controlled organs of power in occupied territories. Forming a puppet government allows the aggressor to simulate an internal civil conflict for the initial seizure of governance, and then to rule the region by proxy for long-term institutional consolidation. | |
| T0133 | Seizure of Power Through Election Manipulation | The aggressor uses the legitimate democratic mechanisms (elections, congresses, parliamentary procedures) of the victim state to seize power from within. Unlike the holding of fake referendums in already occupied territories, this technique is applied to still sovereign, independent institutions. Through the infiltration of agents, falsification of representation quotas, forgery of mandates, and bribery of delegates, the aggressor artificially forms a majority. The goal is to compel a legitimate body of power to vote, in a formally lawful manner, to renounce sovereignty or transfer powers to forces controlled by the metropole. | |
| T0100 | Seizure of Religious Institutions | Aggressors may establish direct forcible and administrative control over local religious institutions, depriving them of canonical independence and subordinating them to their own spiritual centers. The elimination of independent jurisdiction makes it possible to remove authoritative national institutions (seizure of governance) and to use the religious apparatus for the long-term imposition of loyalty and the ideological consolidation of the occupation. | |
| T0088 | Sham Treaty | Aggressors may use diplomatic agreements as an instrument of legal entrapment for an Indigenous people. When concluding a treaty of protectorate or alliance, the colonizer refuses from the outset to assume symmetrical obligations, using the text of the agreement solely to curtail the rights of the local population. This creates a legal basis for subsequent unilateral interference and the dismantling of independent institutions without a formal declaration of war. | |
| T0020 | Staging a Coup | Aggressors may initiate, sponsor, and covertly coordinate a violent change of power in the colonized society. By overthrowing the legitimate government using the forces of internal opposition, radical groups, or recruited military officers, the colonizer artificially creates a political crisis. This allows it to swiftly install a puppet regime without having to launch an open, full-scale military intervention. | |
| T0105 | Total Destruction of Infrastructure | Aggressors may carry out the deliberate, massive destruction of residential districts, industrial facilities, and life-support systems in the course of combat operations. The use of heavy weaponry to wipe entire settlements off the face of the earth deprives the Indigenous people of the ability to organize a defense and physically forces them to abandon or surrender the territory. | |