Pub Date : 2018-09-25DOI: 10.23943/PRINCETON/9780691181769.003.0007
Austin Carson
This chapter analyzes the end of the Cold War and external involvement in Afghanistan. On the Soviet side, the December 1979 invasion was preceded by six months of covert involvement in counterinsurgency military operations. The chapter reviews evidence on the motives for covertness and the detection of it by American leaders. It then assesses covertness in the American weapons supply program after the overt Soviet invasion. Escalation fears—in particular, fear of provoking Soviet retaliation against Pakistan and a larger regional war—led to consistent efforts to keep the expanding U.S. aid program covert from 1979 to 1985. By the mid-1980s, however, American leaders embraced a more aggressive strategy and identified key changes that largely eliminated the risk of escalation, leading them to approve an overt form of weaponry (the Stinger missile system). The chapter also reviews covert Soviet cross-border operations into Pakistan and U.S. inferences from its detection of these activities.
{"title":"The War in Afghanistan (1979–1986)","authors":"Austin Carson","doi":"10.23943/PRINCETON/9780691181769.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23943/PRINCETON/9780691181769.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter analyzes the end of the Cold War and external involvement in Afghanistan. On the Soviet side, the December 1979 invasion was preceded by six months of covert involvement in counterinsurgency military operations. The chapter reviews evidence on the motives for covertness and the detection of it by American leaders. It then assesses covertness in the American weapons supply program after the overt Soviet invasion. Escalation fears—in particular, fear of provoking Soviet retaliation against Pakistan and a larger regional war—led to consistent efforts to keep the expanding U.S. aid program covert from 1979 to 1985. By the mid-1980s, however, American leaders embraced a more aggressive strategy and identified key changes that largely eliminated the risk of escalation, leading them to approve an overt form of weaponry (the Stinger missile system). The chapter also reviews covert Soviet cross-border operations into Pakistan and U.S. inferences from its detection of these activities.","PeriodicalId":356144,"journal":{"name":"Secret Wars","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114310002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-25DOI: 10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0004
Austin Carson
This chapter analyzes foreign combat participation in the Spanish Civil War. Fought from 1936 to 1939, the war hosted covert interventions by Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union. The chapter leverages variation in intervention form among those three states, as well as variation over time in the Italian intervention, to assess the role of escalation concerns and limited war in the use of secrecy. Adolf Hitler's German intervention provides especially interesting support for a theory on escalation control. An unusually candid view of Berlin's thinking suggests that Germany managed the visibility of its covert “Condor Legion” with an eye toward the relative power of domestic hawkish voices in France and Great Britain. The chapter also shows the unique role of direct communication and international organizations. The Non-Intervention Committee, an ad hoc organization that allowed private discussions of foreign involvement in Spain, helped the three interveners and Britain and France keep the war limited in ways that echo key claims of the theory.
{"title":"The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)","authors":"Austin Carson","doi":"10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter analyzes foreign combat participation in the Spanish Civil War. Fought from 1936 to 1939, the war hosted covert interventions by Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union. The chapter leverages variation in intervention form among those three states, as well as variation over time in the Italian intervention, to assess the role of escalation concerns and limited war in the use of secrecy. Adolf Hitler's German intervention provides especially interesting support for a theory on escalation control. An unusually candid view of Berlin's thinking suggests that Germany managed the visibility of its covert “Condor Legion” with an eye toward the relative power of domestic hawkish voices in France and Great Britain. The chapter also shows the unique role of direct communication and international organizations. The Non-Intervention Committee, an ad hoc organization that allowed private discussions of foreign involvement in Spain, helped the three interveners and Britain and France keep the war limited in ways that echo key claims of the theory.","PeriodicalId":356144,"journal":{"name":"Secret Wars","volume":"236 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121872496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-25DOI: 10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0003
Austin Carson
This chapter describes the confluence of political, technological, and social changes that prompted the emergence of covert military intervention as an escalation-control technique. It lays the foundation for assessing how more recent political and technological changes, such as cyberwarfare and drones, influence the covert sphere. In particular, this chapter highlights the special role of World War I. It conceptualizes the Great War as a critical juncture that dramatized the dangers of large-scale war escalation and accelerated political, social, and technological developments that influenced escalation control. These changes sharpened the problem of escalation control by making leaders more vulnerable to hawkish domestic constraints and making intentions about limited war harder to discern. Yet it also made possible new ways of using military force anonymously through, for example, the development of airpower. World War I prompted major powers to experiment with ways of limiting war; this included manipulation of the form of external military intervention.
{"title":"The Emergence of Covert Warfare","authors":"Austin Carson","doi":"10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter describes the confluence of political, technological, and social changes that prompted the emergence of covert military intervention as an escalation-control technique. It lays the foundation for assessing how more recent political and technological changes, such as cyberwarfare and drones, influence the covert sphere. In particular, this chapter highlights the special role of World War I. It conceptualizes the Great War as a critical juncture that dramatized the dangers of large-scale war escalation and accelerated political, social, and technological developments that influenced escalation control. These changes sharpened the problem of escalation control by making leaders more vulnerable to hawkish domestic constraints and making intentions about limited war harder to discern. Yet it also made possible new ways of using military force anonymously through, for example, the development of airpower. World War I prompted major powers to experiment with ways of limiting war; this included manipulation of the form of external military intervention.","PeriodicalId":356144,"journal":{"name":"Secret Wars","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133512262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-25DOI: 10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0006
Austin Carson
This chapter focuses on the covert side of the Vietnam War. Secrecy famously helped Richard Nixon cope with dovish domestic opposition toward the end of the war. In contrast, the chapter highlights the role of covert intervention in helping both sides compete in Vietnam while keeping the war limited during the earlier Johnson years (1964–1968). Even as he greatly expanded U.S. military activity in Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson acted to avoid provoking a larger war with China or the Soviet Union. Covert U.S. military operations in places like Laos, though an open secret, were a way to prosecute a counterinsurgency while keeping a lid on hostilities. China and the Soviet Union similarly sought to control escalation dangers through covertness. Both communist patrons provided military personnel covertly to improve air defense in North Vietnam. The chapter suggests that all three outside powers worked hard to avoid public and acknowledged clashes up through 1968.
{"title":"The Vietnam War (1964–1968)","authors":"Austin Carson","doi":"10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses on the covert side of the Vietnam War. Secrecy famously helped Richard Nixon cope with dovish domestic opposition toward the end of the war. In contrast, the chapter highlights the role of covert intervention in helping both sides compete in Vietnam while keeping the war limited during the earlier Johnson years (1964–1968). Even as he greatly expanded U.S. military activity in Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson acted to avoid provoking a larger war with China or the Soviet Union. Covert U.S. military operations in places like Laos, though an open secret, were a way to prosecute a counterinsurgency while keeping a lid on hostilities. China and the Soviet Union similarly sought to control escalation dangers through covertness. Both communist patrons provided military personnel covertly to improve air defense in North Vietnam. The chapter suggests that all three outside powers worked hard to avoid public and acknowledged clashes up through 1968.","PeriodicalId":356144,"journal":{"name":"Secret Wars","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116967990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-25DOI: 10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0008
Austin Carson
This chapter summarizes the key empirical findings and address extension of the basic argument to cyberconflict and violence within states (i.e., civil wars, terrorism). A consistent theme of the book is that the backstage of war sometimes features direct combat encounters by outside powers that were publicly understood to have avoided such entanglements. The chapter then presents a brief case study of a post-Cold War conflict: the Iranian covert weapons supply program during the U.S. occupation of Iraq (2003–2011). The U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Iranian covert intervention that followed suggest the links between limited war, covertness, and collusion continue to be relevant. Though conclusions about the case are necessarily preliminary, the chapter reviews this conflict to illustrate how the claims of the theory travel to a more recent case. It also addresses questions about the initial choice to intervene, mistakes and exploitation, and the possible implications of social media and leaks in the contemporary era. It concludes by discussing the implications of secrecy's role in escalation control for policy and scholarship.
{"title":"Conclusion","authors":"Austin Carson","doi":"10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter summarizes the key empirical findings and address extension of the basic argument to cyberconflict and violence within states (i.e., civil wars, terrorism). A consistent theme of the book is that the backstage of war sometimes features direct combat encounters by outside powers that were publicly understood to have avoided such entanglements. The chapter then presents a brief case study of a post-Cold War conflict: the Iranian covert weapons supply program during the U.S. occupation of Iraq (2003–2011). The U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Iranian covert intervention that followed suggest the links between limited war, covertness, and collusion continue to be relevant. Though conclusions about the case are necessarily preliminary, the chapter reviews this conflict to illustrate how the claims of the theory travel to a more recent case. It also addresses questions about the initial choice to intervene, mistakes and exploitation, and the possible implications of social media and leaks in the contemporary era. It concludes by discussing the implications of secrecy's role in escalation control for policy and scholarship.","PeriodicalId":356144,"journal":{"name":"Secret Wars","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125821100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-25DOI: 10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0005
Austin Carson
This chapter shifts the focus to the early Cold War, as conflict between North and South Korea threatened to again plunge the wider international system into war. The Korean War, fought from 1950 to 1953, grew to include multiple outside interventions. Yet despite Soviet, American, and Chinese combat participation, the war was successfully limited to the Korean peninsula. As such, this chapter reviews primary materials on a poorly understood aspect of the Korean War: Soviet–American air-to-air combat over North Korea. Records released since the end of the Cold War document how Washington and Moscow engaged in a deadly multiyear struggle for air supremacy and used secrecy to contain its effects. The chapter includes new archival material on American intelligence showing anticipation, detection, and concealment of the Soviet covert entry. It also assesses the United States' initial decision to intervene overtly, its turn to covert action against mainland China, and China's complex role in the war. This chapter argues that China's initial ground intervention used secrecy to achieve surprise, following an operational security logic, but used an unacknowledged “volunteer” intervention to limit the war.
{"title":"The Korean War (1950–1953)","authors":"Austin Carson","doi":"10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691181769.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter shifts the focus to the early Cold War, as conflict between North and South Korea threatened to again plunge the wider international system into war. The Korean War, fought from 1950 to 1953, grew to include multiple outside interventions. Yet despite Soviet, American, and Chinese combat participation, the war was successfully limited to the Korean peninsula. As such, this chapter reviews primary materials on a poorly understood aspect of the Korean War: Soviet–American air-to-air combat over North Korea. Records released since the end of the Cold War document how Washington and Moscow engaged in a deadly multiyear struggle for air supremacy and used secrecy to contain its effects. The chapter includes new archival material on American intelligence showing anticipation, detection, and concealment of the Soviet covert entry. It also assesses the United States' initial decision to intervene overtly, its turn to covert action against mainland China, and China's complex role in the war. This chapter argues that China's initial ground intervention used secrecy to achieve surprise, following an operational security logic, but used an unacknowledged “volunteer” intervention to limit the war.","PeriodicalId":356144,"journal":{"name":"Secret Wars","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124607932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}