Introduction

Lindsey A. O’Rourke (2018) in “Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War” uncovers the behind-the-curtail operation by the US to change countries’ leadership. Published by Cornell University Press in 2018, the book discusses the reasons and methods of the US covert regime change (CRC) operation and explores the effect of it. Here, O’Rourke found the US conducted CRC for offensive, preventive, and hegemonic purposes, and the operation had success against weaker, less-important states. Mostly the operation did not work as the planners’ intention, even backfiring. O’Rourke thus concludes the US’s covert regime operation during the Cold War was ineffective.

O’Rourke made a significant contribution to the assessment of regime change by Realism. O’Rourke proves to the realists and neo-realists who question why a state has the interest in other countries domestic affairs to determine its international relations that leaders take foreign countries’ domestic leadership seriously and actively pursue CRC for influence. Also, most scholars focus on the overt rather than the covert approach. O’Rourke’s book thus helps us to better understand the CRC as a great power’s strategy.

Summary

A country pursues CRC for offensive, preventive, and hegemonic interests. Offensive interests occur when an intervener seeks to overthrow the leadership of a rival state that poses threats and replace it with a party that can foster more amicable relations. Meanwhile, the preventive interest seeks to maintain the target country’s current and future friendly relations with the intervener by preventing the emerging of leaders that can change it. Another interest is hegemonic, in which the intervener’s objective is to make the target states politically remain a follower rather than a rival or challenger, thus enabling the intervener to keep getting military, political, and economic incentives.

Regime change is preferable as foreign policy because it offers a way to influence the underlying rationale of a foreign government leadership policy formulation. For this, covertly intervening can provide the intervener with benefits of a lower cost of failure, as the intervener can deny or put blame on others if the mission failed. However, operating in secret increases the likelihood of failure due to the intervener’s limited resolve. Yet, O’Rourke found that US leaders prefer the covert option because it allows them to keep the mission secret if it fails.

Before executing CRC, there are two necessary conditions that the intervener should consider. First, they need to ensure there is no option other than CRC to secure A state behavior. Second, they should find a substitute for the target state leadership that can guarantee friendlier relations. After these pre-conditions are fulfilled, the intervener can pursue five methods of CRC: assassination, sponsoring coups d’état, support for foreign dissidents, election interference, and democracy promotion. To do these strategies, the intervener requires intelligence inside the target society and relations with the domestic opposition group.

The US’ CRC operations in the past is labelled ineffective by O’Rourke. O’Rourke analysed more than 60 percent of the CRC failed. In cases of success, CRC operations can work at states who are basically weak, uphold democracy, US allies and can offer the US a strong opposition group. Although, the success operation mostly ended up fail to remain a secret and further nurture anti-Americanism. For example, CRC operation to the Soviet which made Stalin loose trust to cooperate with the US and to the Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem which made the US trapped longer and deeper into the conflict. Considering this together, O’Rourke said that the US overestimated the benefits and underestimated the costs of CRC.

Analysis and Evaluation

The data collections of the book are worthy of praise. Covert actions mean they are secret, but the book, via historical and archival research, can gather extensive case studies. O’Rourke admitted critics about the book that overlook a successful CRC because the case should remain in secret. O’Rourke said the objection is “overstated” by arguing that the US agencies will include it in the accessed report the book uses. It appears rational to assume that successful covert operations would remain classified, given their disclosure could jeopardize the US’ reputation. For instance, if Indonesians receive the news that the violent 1965 communist party coup was a component of the US CRC to discredit communism, they will harbor anti-Americanism in the present day. Thus, if indeed O’Rourke missed many of the CRC’s successful cases, then the argument that the US’ CRC were ineffective is weakened.

The assessment of CRC effectiveness via qualitative data and quantitative (statistical probit and bivariate correlations) analysis makes O’Rourke’s book worthy of praise. Building upon this book, several studies have developed how to consider a covert action successful or not. For example, an article by Cormac, Walton, and Puyvelde (2022) entitled “What constitutes successful covert action? Evaluating unacknowledged interventionism in foreign affairs” makes O’Rourke’s book one of the most cited pieces of literature. However, it is important to give serious consideration to the issue of determining whether a state is weak or strong, which is a fundamental concept in O’Rourke’s argument. O’Rourke failed to clearly articulate why certain states are considered weak or strong and what factors contribute to their strategic importance. Making clear this categorization can strengthen O’Rourke’s argument that CRC works better for what she says are weak states.

Conclusion

The book shows that the CRC is no longer a conspiracy theory, and it aids policymakers and citizens in understanding that it is a legitimate strategy in international politics. The book aids government and society in understanding the reasons, strategy, and impacts of CRC, enabling them to become proficient in it or be aware of it. This book fills a gap in the assessment of covert actions related to regime change. However, one could argue that there are still many covert actions that the author has not yet revealed or accessed. This implies that the book provides opportunities for future research to uncover other covert actions related to regime change.

References

Cormac, Rory, Calder Walton, and Damien Van Puyvelde. 2022. “What Constitutes Successful Covert Action? Evaluating Unacknowledged Interventionism in Foreign Affairs.” Review of International Studies 48 (1): 111–28. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210521000231.

O’Rourke, Lindsey A. 2018. Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War. Ithaca (New York): Cornell University Press.