The Future of Covert Regime Change

This chapter summarizes the central argument and empirical findings of the book. It begins by demonstrating that the legal theory developed here outperformed alternative explanations centered on escalation control, domestic politics, and nationalism. It also shows that the argument travels beyond the Cold War and outside of Latin America by exploring America’s various interventions in Iraq from 1991 to 2003 and Obama’s varied responses to civil wars in Libya and Syria during the Arab Spring. The chapter concludes by suggesting avenues for future research and highlighting the book’s scholarly and practical implications.

Operation Zapata: Cuba

This chapter explores one of the most infamous episodes of covert action during the Cold War: The Bay of Pigs. The operation, which was authorized by Dwight Eisenhower in March of 1960 and carried out by John F. Kennedy in mid-April of the following year, involved training and arming Cuban exiles with the aim of overthrowing Fidel Castro. America’s hand was not supposed to show. In the end, the mission was a failure. Consistent with the book’s argument, the evidence shows that decision makers were reluctant to openly violate the nonintervention principle by pursuing overt action against Fidel Castro. As a result, they opted for a covert operation they knew was less likely to succeed to avoid undermining America’s moral authority and to protect the credibility of its commitments. Decision makers were also willing to act overtly if a legal exemption to nonintervention materialized.

Operation Urgent Fury: Grenada

This chapter analyzes Ronald Reagan’s decision to intervene in Grenada in October 1983 to remove the left-leaning New Jewel Movement from power. Plans for regime change began in earnest in mid-October after the sitting Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, was ousted by hardliners, and culminated in a full-scale invasion on October 25. The evidence affirms the book’s central predictions, namely that the availability of two legal exemptions enabled the Reagan administration to pursue a public regime change. The first was the presence of endangered medical students enrolled in St. George’s Medical School on the island. The second legal exemption was an invitation for the United States to intervene to restore order from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, a collective security regime. Senior officials relied heavily on these exemptions over the course of the intervention and beyond as a means of demonstrating the legality of their actions to allies and other friendly regimes.

Project FUBELT and Track II: Chile

This chapter investigates the factors that led the Nixon administration to pursue covert regime change against Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist President of Chile in the early 1970s. Initial attempts at preventing Allende from coming to power, including a military coup, failed. Although subsequent covert destabilization efforts contributed to Allende’s eventual downfall in 1973 at the hands of Augusto Pinochet and his co-conspirators, U.S. decision makers were not directly involved. They did, however, have advance warning. One of the primary reasons for the use of secrecy in this case was America’s commitment to nonintervention and the attendant credibility and legitimacy costs associated with brazenly violating it. Although U.S. officials never considered overtly invading Chile, they were reticent to pursue less dramatic overt policies aimed at overthrowing Allende, including sanctions and other hardline policies, unless they could secure legal cover.

The Politics of Secret Interventions

This chapter constitutes the theoretical core of the book. It begins by introducing existing explanations for why decision makers choose covert action or overt alternatives when pursuing regime change. These include the desire to control escalation dynamics, circumvent domestic political constraints, and avoid stirring up nationalist sentiment in the target state. Having laid out these alternatives, the chapter advances the book’s central claim that leaders are more likely to pursue regime change overtly when they can find a legal exemption to the nonintervention principle. Otherwise, they will choose covert action. The mechanisms underlying this claim are decision makers’ interest in protecting their credibility and avoiding hypocrisy costs by refraining from brazenly violating other states’ sovereignty. The United States is especially susceptible to these considerations given its long-standing interest in projecting an image of strategic restraint and legitimate leadership. The chapter concludes by taking up lingering questions, describing case selection and methodology, and outlining observable implications.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the central question at the heart of this book, namely why leaders sometimes opt for covert action when pursuing regime change rather than pursuing overt alternatives. It begins with several empirical puzzles. For example, why did the United States openly help overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011 but opt for covert action in the quest to topple Bashar al-Assad in Syria a year later despite the fact that both episodes involved humanitarian catastrophes spurred on by brutal dictators with a history of acrimonious relations with the West? The remainder of the chapter summarizes the book’s central theoretical argument, defines key terms, explains the importance of studying the phenomenon under investigation, and highlights the primary scholarly contributions. It also provides a roadmap for each of the subsequent chapters contained in the rest of the book.

Operation Power Pack: Dominican Republic

This chapter examines Lyndon Johnson’s decision to invade the Dominican Republic in 1965 against the backdrop of an escalating war in Vietnam. The intervention, which began on April 28, sought to forestall what the administration feared would be a communist takeover by preventing the so-called constitutionalist forces who had gained control of the capital from consolidating power during an incipient civil war. The central finding is that the presence of two legal exemptions to nonintervention made it possible for Johnson to rely on overt action. Initially, decision makers used the presence of endangered nationals to justify deploying U.S. military forces to the island. These troops were then able to stay on to ensure a favorable political outcome under the auspices of an Inter-American Peacekeeping Force which was created by the Organization of American States in early May. The administration leaned heavily on these legal exemptions in the days and weeks after the operation began.

The Evolution of Nonintervention

This chapter traces the evolution of the nonintervention principle from its inception in the mid-eighteenth century to its codification in international law two centuries later. Before nonintervention was formally codified, great powers largely ignored the wishes of international lawyers, philosophers, and smaller states by regularly pursuing overt intervention. Although foreign interference continued after nonintervention became treaty law in the mid-twentieth century, states were more likely to relegate such acts to the covert sphere despite the fact that doing so decreased their chances of success. Overt intervention became the exception. Understanding these dynamics provides historical context for the remaining chapters, helps justify the book’s focus on the postwar period, and offers a basis for examining how changes to the rules governing intervention such as the rise of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine may influence how states intervene abroad in the future.