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Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics
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.
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.
344 pages, Paperback
Published June 9, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 24, 2019
Dr. Carson's book analyzes how states covertly participate in foreign wars as a means of limiting war thereby controlling escalation dynamics to avoid escalation in peripheral areas. He argues that powers "collude" to avoid escalation via interventions they detect. Very well researched.
August 7, 2022
The premise for the research presented in the book is very interesting and could lead to very interesting conclusions. However, it feels like the author essentially took his dissertation and printed it as a book. If I wanted to read his dissertation, I would. A book version is intended to present the same information in an accesible manner and not as an academic paper. I was very excited about this book and was disappointed in what I found.
August 8, 2020
This is a book I read for *fun* for my work life. It is a really interesting read that is accessible to a general audience, while being a great bit of scholarship that will be useful for scholars in many different subfields of political science and international relations.
Clearly and engagingly written.
Clearly and engagingly written.
June 9, 2019
I suppose there are policy implications but I don’t think decisions are made with this logic at hand. Would be interested in him furthering research in cyber as a covert domain.
September 2, 2025
Fundamentally changed my perceptions of this important tool of national power.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews