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.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780691184241
Publisert
2018
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter