BOOK REVIEW: COVERT ACTION: NATIONAL APPROACHES TO UNACKNOWLEDGED INTERVENTION
By Magda Long (Editor, Contributor), Rory Cormac (Editor, Contributor), Genevieve Lester (Editor), Mark Stout (Editor, Contributor), Damien Van Puyvelde (Editor, Contributor), and 20 more contributors. / Georgetown University Press
Reviewed by: Aaron Paine
The Reviewer — Aaron Paine is a graduate student and an active-duty soldier. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policies or positions of the United States military or government.
REVIEW — Batman donned his graphite cowl to become more than a man. Samurai chose facial armor called men-yoroi. British monarchs, the Imperial Robe. And the Greeks wore masks called prosopon. That way, in the middle of a play, an actor could don a new mask and become a new character entirely, a new voice in the narrative, without losing what made him “him.”
Masks have always symbolized transformation. In Covert Action: National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention more than two dozen contributors explore how states mask their power in secret statecraft. The tools of politics are the same for every ruler; but they must be used together. The book’s numerous scholarly contributors examine the use of covert action across twenty countries and over several eras.
They start in ancient Athens, with details of the “proxenia,” aristocratic courtiers, including Alexander I of Macedonia (and allegedly Alcibiades) who turned from low-level courtiers to intelligence officers, but then again to court decorations because no one in any circle would trust them. Then on to America’s first regime change operation in Tripoli, circa 1805. The authors claim that Jefferson was just following yet another precedent of Washington’s — so too for Madison — so too, in fact, for every other helmsman of the U.S. ship of state to the present day.
Next is a chapter on the Canadians. The only mishap here is a rhetorical one, a missed chance to make a joke of the “Canada is too nice” variety as they say that Canada lacks a dedicated “secret statecraft” service. Australians, on the other hand, like it very much, but there is an atmospheric privation of agreement about what “secret statecraft” really is in their politics. And regarding the stiff upper-lipped, their chapter’s author defines the British view as imperial, but not imperious, and with a clear mind about the duties of that heritage. Here too there is a lack of clear definitions, but this may be mostly — or barely— good: paraphrasing a spy, the author writes that secret statecraft is “simply intelligence ‘doing stuff.’”
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The next few chapters can make a legitimate claim to shed new light on new material. The analysis on Palestine and Israel add influence operations to the scope; India’s use of “clandestine diplomacy” turns out to be highly effective; and the French have a light touch. Lebanon wants to take the ball and go home (the author pulls no punches about the Council of Ministers). In what may be the most philosophical chapter, post-war West Germany tries to do secret statecraft but divorces foreign intelligence from covert action.
Then the book turns toward more “authoritarian” places. The chapter on Brazil takes an anthropological approach: what do Brazilians think of secret statecraft? It’s taboo. “The future belongs to God.” Would that all nations thought so, but Turkey and South Africa certainly don’t. Neither do Russia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, or North Korea.
Nor is there a way to say “secret statecraft” in Mandarin — the closest is “zhengzhizhan”, which (hilariously) is used by the media to mock the underlying notion as “western.” The author details the use of Mao’s “Three Warfares” to show that while China says that they do not really “do” covert action, they use the same tools of secret statecraft to greater effect than many others.
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Covert Action is a sweeping and cerebral history. The authors are able explainers of both linguistics and the nasty technical notions of, say, the difference between departments and directorates in communist Bulgaria. The book strings together tightly packed case studies that, taken together, create a surprisingly engaging narrative across cultures and eras.
The climax of the volume is its discussion of international liberalism. Drawing on threads from all over the book, it suggests that the West needs secrets, and specifically secret statecraft, but a part of every regime prefers to hold their noses while doing it.
Perhaps the book’s greatest success is the way it elevates Unacknowledged Intervention (UI) above the type of regime. A good deception creates leverage; it’s not about exhaustion from the excuses of verbose diplomats and or the bellicosity of soldiers. The theory they advance is that unacknowledged intervention is a function of geopolitics and culture, filtered through domestic politics and regime type.
The old way of thinking about covert action is out. But despite this depth and richness, the book leaves more open questions than it answers.
Rejecting the paradigm of legalese proliferated by the Americans after the second World War and rightly pointing to the inherent problems which arise from contextual etymology, the book digs deeper. But after finding bones during the excavation — what secrets are metaphysically, so to speak — it leaves them alone. Stories of hard tactics like influence operations, sabotage, kidnapping, assassination, and political warfare fare a little better.
“Covert Action” is a compelling but not quite persuasive project that raises some interesting questions. Have we kept covert action on the right side of the line? If we didn’t, did it work? Is the Title 10 of 2025 the Title 50 of not-so-long-ago? With this new paradigm, scholars and practitioners should be able to better engage with history and think about the future.
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