Dictionary:

subversion

  (səb-vûr'zhən, -shən)

1. 1. The act or an instance of subverting.
   2. The condition of being subverted.
2. Obsolete. A cause of overthrow or ruin.

[Middle English subversioun, from Old French subversion, from Late Latin subversiō, subversiōn-, from Latin subversus, past participle of subvertere, to subvert. See subvert.]

noun

A deliberate and underhanded effort to defeat or do harm to an endeavor: sabotage, undermining. See attack/defend.

n. action designed to undermine the military, economic, psychological, or political strength or morale of a regime.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

A subversion is an overturning or uprooting. The word is present in all languages of Latin origin, originally applying to such diverse events as the military defeat of a city and a severe gastric disorder. But as early as the fourteenth century it was being used in the English language with reference to laws and in the fifteenth century came to be used with respect to the realm. This is the origin of its modern use, which refers to attempts to overthrow structures of authority, including the state. In this respect, it has taken over from ‘sedition’ as the name for illicit rebellion, though the connotations of the two words are rather different, sedition suggesting overt attacks on institutions, subversion something much more surreptitious, such as eroding the basis of belief in the status quo or setting people against each other.

Recent writers, in the post-modern and post- structuralist traditions (including, particularly, feminist writers) have prescribed a very broad form of subversion. It is not, directly, the realm which should be subverted in their view, but the predominant cultural forces, such as patriarchy, individualism, and scientific rationalism. This broadening of the target of subversion owes much to the ideas of Gramsci, who stressed that communist revolution required the erosion of the particular form of ‘cultural hegemony’ in any society.

— Lincoln Allison

(DOD) Action designed to undermine the military, economic, psychological, or political strength or morale of a regime. See also unconventional warfare.