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New Cold War History
Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War
Freedom fighters. Guerrilla warriors. Soldiers of fortune. The many civil wars and rebellions against communist governments drew heavily from this cast of characters. Yet from Nicaragua to Afghanistan, Vietnam to Angola, Cuba to the Congo, the connections between these anticommunist groups have remained hazy and their coordination obscure. Yet as Kyle Burke reveals, these conflicts were the product of a rising movement that sought paramilitary action against communism worldwide. Tacking between the United States and many other countries, Burke offers an international history not only of the paramilitaries who started and waged small wars in the second half of the twentieth century but of conservatism in the Cold War era.
From the start of the Cold War, Burke shows, leading U.S. conservatives and their allies abroad dreamed of an international anticommunist revolution. They pinned their hopes to armed men, freedom fighters who could unravel communist states from within. And so they fashioned a global network of activists and state officials, guerrillas and mercenaries, ex-spies and ex-soldiers to sponsor paramilitary campaigns in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Blurring the line between state-sanctioned and vigilante violence, this armed crusade helped radicalize right-wing groups in the United States while also generating new forms of privatized warfare abroad.
From the start of the Cold War, Burke shows, leading U.S. conservatives and their allies abroad dreamed of an international anticommunist revolution. They pinned their hopes to armed men, freedom fighters who could unravel communist states from within. And so they fashioned a global network of activists and state officials, guerrillas and mercenaries, ex-spies and ex-soldiers to sponsor paramilitary campaigns in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Blurring the line between state-sanctioned and vigilante violence, this armed crusade helped radicalize right-wing groups in the United States while also generating new forms of privatized warfare abroad.
368 pages, Paperback
First published June 4, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 26, 2021
Let me add my praise to this already well-received study of paramilitarism and conservative internationalism from the 1950s to the post-Cold War era. It's a truly international and transnational study that draws on a wide range of sources. Burke argues that within the spectrum of Cold War thought and strategy there was a section of the right that believed the Cold War should be fought mainly by foreign paramilitaries and that the US should pursue rollback insurgencies against communist regimes. Figures on the right organized and formed a global "conservative internationale" in alliances with right-wing foreign dictators and insurgent leaders, raising awareness/support for them at home and sometimes funneling resources directly to them.
This trend accelerated after Vietnam for a couple of reason. First, the failure of Vietnam convinced these conservatives of their strategy of offshoring the fighting of communism to rev/counterev movements in the developing world. Second, conservatives and many Americans in general had a post-VN crisis of confidence/masculinity in which they wanted to find new ways to hit back against communism. Third, Vietnam and teh post-Vietnam firings from the CIA and other intel services put a lot of bitter but resourceful (and hardline anti-Communist) intelligence and special forces operatives out of work, creating a labor pool for private military groups. Fourth, and possibly most important, the Church Committee, Clark and Boland Amendments, and other post-Vietnam restrictions on US executive power and interventionism convinced this book's main actors that the US had lost it's will to fight communism and that the private sector should take over. They did so by expanding their organizations and funneling even more aid to groups like the Contras or Jonas Savimbi, by allying with Reagan admin hardliners to lift restrictions on foreign aid, and generally running around the world trying to aid these dubious groups.
The end of the Cold War led to the collapse of global conservative paramilitarism as a formal movement, but this movement created all kinds of legacies: the privatization of military force, anti-Communist and anti-gov't paranoia at home on the right, and a network of foreign policy hardliners who could push tough lines on issues like Iran, Iraq, or North Korea.
This is an important book in the growing subfield of the study of conservative internationalism. As Burke notes early on, conservatism is too often treated independently from global forces, and conservatives themselves are often seen as not thinking much about the world. While conservatism is usually more insular than other ideologies, this defect in the historiography overlooks a lot of important dynamics, including those that Burke's book highlights. I strongly recommend this book for anyone in the general field of the history of US conservatism and anyone interested in privatization, paramilitary, Cold War, and other fields of study.
This trend accelerated after Vietnam for a couple of reason. First, the failure of Vietnam convinced these conservatives of their strategy of offshoring the fighting of communism to rev/counterev movements in the developing world. Second, conservatives and many Americans in general had a post-VN crisis of confidence/masculinity in which they wanted to find new ways to hit back against communism. Third, Vietnam and teh post-Vietnam firings from the CIA and other intel services put a lot of bitter but resourceful (and hardline anti-Communist) intelligence and special forces operatives out of work, creating a labor pool for private military groups. Fourth, and possibly most important, the Church Committee, Clark and Boland Amendments, and other post-Vietnam restrictions on US executive power and interventionism convinced this book's main actors that the US had lost it's will to fight communism and that the private sector should take over. They did so by expanding their organizations and funneling even more aid to groups like the Contras or Jonas Savimbi, by allying with Reagan admin hardliners to lift restrictions on foreign aid, and generally running around the world trying to aid these dubious groups.
The end of the Cold War led to the collapse of global conservative paramilitarism as a formal movement, but this movement created all kinds of legacies: the privatization of military force, anti-Communist and anti-gov't paranoia at home on the right, and a network of foreign policy hardliners who could push tough lines on issues like Iran, Iraq, or North Korea.
This is an important book in the growing subfield of the study of conservative internationalism. As Burke notes early on, conservatism is too often treated independently from global forces, and conservatives themselves are often seen as not thinking much about the world. While conservatism is usually more insular than other ideologies, this defect in the historiography overlooks a lot of important dynamics, including those that Burke's book highlights. I strongly recommend this book for anyone in the general field of the history of US conservatism and anyone interested in privatization, paramilitary, Cold War, and other fields of study.
December 5, 2021
This was a great dive into the many different ways that fascists and far-right forces mobilized against leftist governments and movements from the 1950s to today. It provides a really crucial level of nuance that I didn't really think of before - that beside the state-sanctioned support for far-right regimes and counterrevolutionaries, there was also an explosive, private-backed aspect of insurgents in Nicaragua, Angola, Laos, and more. My biggest issue with the book, however, is its complete omission of Indonesia, one of the epicenters of anticommunist mass murder in the Cold War period. Read Vincent Bevins' The Jakarta Method for that, which is phenomenal. I just think that even a small piece of that story is crucial to understanding anticommunist internationalism and I would have liked to see that tied into this picture. But still, a very excellent and detailed book.
September 7, 2024
Well researched and written, but its scope feels somewhat limited. Book is almost entirely focused on S. America, S.E. Asia, and parts of Africa, with Europe only appearing, fleetingly, during the post-Cold War conclusion.
September 22, 2021
Makes a great companion piece to Kathleen Belew's Bring the War Home.
December 14, 2019
I went into this book thinking it would be about the world of mercenaries and Soldier of Fortune, which it is, and that magazine is at the center of the book, but it's really more about the funding of anticommunist paramilitary groups in the post-Vietnam era. Few globetrotting mercenaries actually show up or stick through, but more about funding separatists. Totally fascinating and a great angle on CIA history as well. It all just seems so absolutely crazy in retrospect. Lots of eye-opening details here.
Didn't know that Pinochet funded a bombing in DC. And this is someone the US was funding! Jack Abramoff's movie Red Scorpion was actually funded by the South African government to support the guerillas in Angola. Funding of the Contras in Nicaragua wasn't just some secret government program, it was happening everywhere. They had ads in Soldier of Fortune! Manafort also shows up. Never hear about the 70s purge of the CIA and how they seemed to threaten an increase in domestic crime as a result.
Rambo, the POW/MIA movement, bin Laden and the mujahadeen, there's a lot going on. Only downside I would say is that Afghanistan doesn't get much attention in favor of Nicaragua, Rhodesia, Angola, and Laos.
Didn't know that Pinochet funded a bombing in DC. And this is someone the US was funding! Jack Abramoff's movie Red Scorpion was actually funded by the South African government to support the guerillas in Angola. Funding of the Contras in Nicaragua wasn't just some secret government program, it was happening everywhere. They had ads in Soldier of Fortune! Manafort also shows up. Never hear about the 70s purge of the CIA and how they seemed to threaten an increase in domestic crime as a result.
Rambo, the POW/MIA movement, bin Laden and the mujahadeen, there's a lot going on. Only downside I would say is that Afghanistan doesn't get much attention in favor of Nicaragua, Rhodesia, Angola, and Laos.
November 5, 2023
A great history of the international networks and clearinghouses for ex-Nazi whackos, East-Asian tyrants, Latin American bourgeois perverts and Arab Islamists the CIA and the American right helped to establish in the hopes of stopping people from demanding equal rights and rational economic policies, at home and abroad... with predictable blowback down the road in the form of fascist militias and the development of the culture of conspiratorial mercenary "operators" in the US.
February 3, 2026
Starts off incredibly strong but is severely weakened by its conclusion that is so deeply rooted in 2016-2017 culture war politics that it fails to take the preceding 60 years of history covered in the book into consideration. Erik Prince, Richard Spencer (remember him? lol) and Steve Bannon are extensions of the paramilitary anti-communist tendency from the Cold War, not breaks with it. That’s not to say that the book isn’t good, it’s incredibly valuable, but it doesn’t fully explore the idea that these private paramilitaries and their conservative backers were part of a larger strategy by the US government, not opponents of it. The possibility needs to be addressed that their complaints about the CIA or the state department having its hands tied by liberals and bureaucracy were simply another aspect of legitimizing the shift to privatizing the American military and repealing congressional bans on arms sales to contra rebel groups. In other words, the idea of the US government having plausible deniability is touched on but not fully explored.
The book also does not go into the final outcomes of each of these contra wars; what does it mean that in Nicaragua, Cambodia, and Angola there were UN-imposed elections that ultimately failed to bring the opposition forces to laying power? What about Afghanistan and the years of civil war following the Soviet withdrawal? How did the decade-long counterinsurgency wars impact the economies of Vietnam, Cuba, and the USSR whose troops were committed to foreign conflicts? What does it mean that the mercenary efforts failed militarily but nonetheless prolonged these conflicts overseas? These are important elements of the story and their absence (especially when considering the America-centric conclusion) hampers the book’s argument and message.
Still, this is overall a very valuable book for understanding the ways that the international anti communist movement promoted itself and engaged with different groups.
The book also does not go into the final outcomes of each of these contra wars; what does it mean that in Nicaragua, Cambodia, and Angola there were UN-imposed elections that ultimately failed to bring the opposition forces to laying power? What about Afghanistan and the years of civil war following the Soviet withdrawal? How did the decade-long counterinsurgency wars impact the economies of Vietnam, Cuba, and the USSR whose troops were committed to foreign conflicts? What does it mean that the mercenary efforts failed militarily but nonetheless prolonged these conflicts overseas? These are important elements of the story and their absence (especially when considering the America-centric conclusion) hampers the book’s argument and message.
Still, this is overall a very valuable book for understanding the ways that the international anti communist movement promoted itself and engaged with different groups.
June 9, 2023
Very solid book- I think it gives a good understanding of how the US right's view of the state changed from the 50's onward, and how this fed into the growth of paramilitary groups throughout the world (and their prevalence in modern day warfare). Also manages to give a good overview of the intersection of white power groups in the US with paramilitary groups abroad, and how anticommunism unites these semi-disparate movements (I think I preferred the writing and scope of this, compared to Belew's Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America which I recently read).
I do, however, think it necessary to pair this book with Bevin's The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. Suharto's genocidal regime in Indonesia, and the backing for his regime provided by US state forces, are really the birth-point for the anticommunist tactics applied in Latin America, Africa, and southeast Asia (which Burke's book focuses on); without this information, I do not believe we can fully contextualize the development of right-wing thought in the US and abroad over the past several decades.
I do, however, think it necessary to pair this book with Bevin's The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. Suharto's genocidal regime in Indonesia, and the backing for his regime provided by US state forces, are really the birth-point for the anticommunist tactics applied in Latin America, Africa, and southeast Asia (which Burke's book focuses on); without this information, I do not believe we can fully contextualize the development of right-wing thought in the US and abroad over the past several decades.
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May 25, 2020very good.. its focused primarily on america, which is good and bad. if its a story of 'internationalism' its mostly a story of anticommunist internationalism as led and directed by american actors...
read it if ya want, i say
read it if ya want, i say
December 5, 2024
I definitely learned a lot from this. It’s very dense at times and sometimes hops around but I think it was generally very well-written and interesting. The conclusion felt a bit rushed to me, though, and I’m not sure I fully agree with how it tied everything together.
September 16, 2019
I will write a review of this book after I digest the info . RJH
Want to Read
July 20, 2023HX44 .B773 2018 Memorial Library
December 31, 2020
Good to see how Cold War right-wing evil people have turned into the trusted military contractors today.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews