The Defensive Cloak and Dagger: The Role of Covert Action in Statecraft (draft Title)

Covert action is a vast sphere of statecraft. In the last 15 years, a variety of states have taken covert action against other states. What is the logic driving states to intervene covertly in some places but not others? More specifically, when states contemplate action against allies, neutrals, and members of adversary alliances, when do they act covertly and when do they abstain from such action? I argue that under these conditions states are drawn to covert action when they express doubt about a target state’s future alignment. Specifically, states act covertly when they fear that a target state is at risk of shifting its alignment toward a pressing danger—the state that the intervener considers most threatening. This book project revises existing scholarship on covert action, which often focuses on states’ pursuit of covert regime change or portrays states’ use of covert action as reckless or offensive. I show instead that states’ use of covert action for offensive purposes is less effective and, for that reason, less common than previous works acknowledge. During the Cold War, I show, both the United States and the Soviet Union behaved cautiously in the covert realm because they recognized that revising the status quo through covert means is difficult. Instead, covert action is useful for preserving the alignment of the intervener’s allies. This argument helps account for the longevity of international alliances—covert action helps states keep their friends close.