A comparative international perspective challenges conventional narratives about unacknowledged intervention
"Covert action" is generally understood as politically motivated and plausibly deniable interference by one state in the affairs of another state. It includes propaganda, political or economic subversion, paramilitary action, and assassinations. Covert action is the most consequential and controversial form of secret statecraft, and it has become a ubiquitous feature of international politics. However, it is often sensationalized or seen through a narrow, US-centric lens.
Covert Action challenges this conventional narrative and redefines secret statecraft by offering a groundbreaking comparative international perspective that explores the practice of unacknowledged intervention across twenty countries and a range of eras. Bringing together leading scholars from around the world, this volume moves beyond the American, and wider, anglosphere perspectives to examine covert action practices across states, regime types, and time.
This book will be important reading for historians, political scientists, and policymakers, and it provides a foundational study of the hidden mechanisms of international power. It takes a global perspective and thus transforms the understanding of how nations truly interact behind the scenes, revealing covert action as a complex form of international statecraft.
Reviews
"Timely and important, this is a book every policymaker needs to read. It shows how states have turned to covert action to exploit strategic ambiguity, testing for weakness all around the world. This brilliant collection is the first to examine the global shadow war."—Richard J. Aldrich, professor, University of Warwick, author of GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency
About the Author
Magda Long received her doctorate from King's College London and is a research fellow at several academic institutions in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Rory Cormac is a professor of international relations at the University of Nottingham.
Genevieve Lester is the lead for intelligence on the Afghanistan War Commission and an associate fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Mark Stout, now retired, is the former director of the Master's in Global Security Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University and a former intelligence officer.
Damien Van Puyvelde is an associate professor and chairs the Intelligence and Security Research Group of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University.
