Abstract
Covert action is a little studied but important tool of foreign policy used, most obviously, by the United States. It has entered the popular imagination, although the reality of covert action is often far removed from the image of James Bond and Jason Bourne which Hollywood has built around the term. It has also entered the fields of international relations and legal theory; understanding covert action allows scholars to better understand the use of force in, and conduct of, foreign affairs. In particular, understanding covert action opens a route to understand the Cold War.But understanding the role covert action plays in international relations is complex; it is a subject about which little material – certainly official information – is available and, while there is a substantial academic literature, it is a field dominated by former practitioners and journalists. Their accounts suffer variously from a lack of access to official sources and an over-reliance on personal experience rather than properly sourced evidence. Their understanding of their subject matter is characterised by their backgrounds; when scholars of international relations refer to covert action, they are not necessarily referring to the same thing as scholars of international law.
The purpose of this research is to examine this literature in order to understand whether covert action can be objectively identified and codified as it is currently in the literature. It analyses the historical development of the term (language), the action itself, and the organisations which conduct and control it in order to understand how covert action is constructed, and to argue that it is so tightly bound into the culture of US National Security that it is not possible to identify it as a set of activities. This research concludes that the use of covert action as a means to understand international relations and the use of force is based on a flawed premise. Absent the context of US National Security Policy as it developed between the Second World War and Cold War, covert action does not exist.
| Date of Award | 1 Jan 2022 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Andrew Dorman (Supervisor) & Tim Bird (Supervisor) |