Secret Wars : Covert Conflict in International Politics / Austin Carson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carson, Austin, author.

Series:

Princeton studies in international history and politics

Princeton Studies in International History and Politics ; 168

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

International relations.

Intervention (International law).

Official secrets.

War.

World politics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 325 pages) : illustrations, charts, tables

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Secret Wars is the first book to systematically analyze the ways powerful states covertly participate in foreign wars, showing a recurring pattern of such behavior stretching from World War I to U.S.-occupied Iraq. Investigating what governments keep secret during wars and why, Austin Carson argues that leaders maintain the secrecy of state involvement as a response to the persistent concern of limiting war. Keeping interventions "backstage" helps control escalation dynamics, insulating leaders from domestic pressures while communicating their interest in keeping a war contained.Carson shows that covert interventions can help control escalation, but they are almost always detected by other major powers. However, the shared value of limiting war can lead adversaries to keep secret the interventions they detect, as when American leaders concealed clashes with Soviet pilots during the Korean War. Escalation concerns can also cause leaders to ignore covert interventions that have become an open secret. From Nazi Germany's role in the Spanish Civil War to American covert operations during the Vietnam War, Carson presents new insights about some of the most influential conflicts of the twentieth century.Parting the curtain on the secret side of modern war, Secret Wars provides important lessons about how rival state powers collude and compete, and the ways in which they avoid outright military confrontations.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. Introduction

2. A Limited- War Theory of Secrecy

3. The Emergence of Covert Warfare

4. The Spanish Civil War (1936- 1939)

5. The Korean War (1950- 1953)

6. The Vietnam War (1964- 1968)

7. The War in Afghanistan (1979- 1986)

8. Conclusion

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2018.

GOBI

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691184241

0691184240

OCLC:

1046673363