Covert Regime Change

America's Secret Cold War

Lindsey A. O'Rourke

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781501761737
• eBook ISBN: 9781501730696
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: History

O'Rourke's book offers a onestop shop for understanding foreign-imposed regime change. Covert Regime Change is an impressive book and required reading for anyone interested in understanding hidden power in world politics.? Political Science Quarterly 

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. 

Table of contents

• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• 1. The False Promise of Covert Regime Change
• 2. Causes
• 3. Conduct
• 4. Consequences
• 5. Overview of US-Backed Regime Changes during the Cold War
• 6. Rolling Back the Iron Curtain
• 7. Containment, Coup d’État, and the Covert War in Vietnam
• 8. Dictators and Democrats in the Dominican Republic
• 9. Covert Regime Change after the Cold War
• Notes
• Index