Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War

by Lindsey A. O'Rourke

States seldom resort to war to overthrow their adversaries. They are more likely to attempt to covertly change the opposing regime, by assassinating a foreign leader, sponsoring a coup d’état, meddling in a democratic election, or secretly aiding foreign dissident groups.

In Covert Regime Change, Lindsey A. O’Rourke shows us how states really act when trying to overthrow another state. She argues that conventional focus on overt cases misses the basic causes of regime change. O’Rourke provides substantive evidence of types of security interests that drive states to intervene. Offensive operations aim to overthrow a current military rival or break up a rival alliance. Preventive operations seek to stop a state from taking certain actions, such as joining a rival alliance, that may make them a future security threat. Hegemonic operations try to maintain a hierarchical relationship between the intervening state and the target government. Despite the prevalence of covert attempts at regime change, most operations fail to remain covert and spark blowback in unanticipated ways.

Covert Regime Change assembles an original dataset of all American regime change operations during the Cold War. This fund of information shows the United States was ten times more likely to try covert rather than overt regime change during the Cold War. Her dataset allows O’Rourke to address three foundational questions: What motivates states to attempt foreign regime change? Why do states prefer to conduct these operations covertly rather than overtly? How successful are such missions in achieving their foreign policy goals?

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American, International Relations, Historical, The United States Of America

330 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2018

Reviews

[Æ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really different in a surprising way. I came across the author because of a Washington Post article she wrote in 2016 titled “The U.S. tried to change other countries’ governments 72 times during the Cold War”. I figured any book written by her about regime change is gonna be awesome. What I didn’t expect was how the book is designed...

This book is written as a long-form scientific research paper trying to determine the reasons behind the US’s regime change efforts, their efficacy, etc. via the scientific method. It sort of throws into question my main theory of the reason behind regime change (draining wealth from weaker countries into stronger ones). But it strengthens my other prevailing theory as to the reasons behind US regime change: centralizing power.

If a nation dares goes against US hegemony, it is swiftly brought into line via covert (and sometimes overt) intervention. We’ve overthrown democracies, dictatorships, capitalist countries, and communist ones. Sometimes for the benefit of corporations, but usually not.

It is clear from this very thorough, cold, dry analysis that regime change is ultimately counter-productive and indefensible. If you want the cold, hard, apolitical, scientific facts of US-led regime change, read this book and you will see the truth: Don’t do it.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding US foreign policy in the past, present, and future.

[Turgut · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book Sobering and Historic.
Clearly a book that has been extensively researched. The book describes initially the various reasons and methods used for intervention. It then shows how most were unsuccessful or even made problems worse. The final chapters include a series of case studies where a select few of the interventions are reviewed in greater detail.
The book have been written without much emotion, which must have been very hard considering the seriousness and often tragic consequences that many of these operations had for many people.

[Kåre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Handler om de regimeforandringer, som USA har udført i perioden fra anden verdenskrig til 1989. Perioden er valgt, fordi dokumenter om den er deklacificerde og derfor kan man få valid viden. Der var mindst 69 sådanne.
En guldgrubbe af viden.

[Spencer Willardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really interesting book. I have been thinking about covert operations and their effect on international relations for awhile. This book is an excellent resource for thinking through those issues.