He has just written a new book, secret wars covert conflict in international politics. It will be available for purchase after todays talk. Dr. Carson is an assistant professor in the department of Political Science at the university of chicago. He has published widely already. He is published in the journal of politics and security studies. He has launched on his second book project already. It analyzes the role of Sensitive Information and secrecy in international organizations. He received his phd from ohio state in 2013. As i previously mentioned, he was a Summer Research scholar under the title a program here at the institute in 2013. With that, i will turn the floor over to austin. Thank you. Thanks also to all of you for coming. Its great to be back here at the Wilson Center. I really appreciate the institute that support the Cold War International history project. And a shout out to victoria and sydney for all youve done to make it possible. I want to start my talk about this book with a simple but profound question. How have we, as an International Community avoided world war iii after suffering to catastrophic global conflicts in the first half of the 20th century . We have so far managed to avoid it. The most common answer that scholars have given is it has something to do with the spread of democracy, with the emergence of international law, the development of Nuclear Weapons and mutually assured destruction, or the structure of International Systems for much of that postwar period. One of the arguments my book advances is a sort of provocative but interesting claim, that a non obvious reason for why weve avoided world war iii is secrecy. Ive argued that factors like the spread of democracy or Nuclear Weapons are insufficient to prevent ideological and geopolitical disagreements from emerging. Civil wars happened, smaller wars happen, and interests, opportunistic or defensive remain. Those clashes of interest invite militarized disputes and invite situations that could escalate to larger scale of conflict. Limited war, as an exercise is very difficult. Its hard to restrain oneself when one adversary might not respect the same form of restraint. Limited wars are often times are messy. In this book, i argue that leaders believed that secrecy about external millitary interventions specifically, could help keep those inevitable clashes of political interest that can emerge and take manifestation on the battlefield, temp those clashes from becoming larger wars. Its specific use. Hiding external military intervention. Its on covert forms of military intervention. And the secrecy dynamics that surround it. Using secrecy allows governments, major powers, to conceal aspects of conflict which would otherwise invite the domestic political reactions or reputational reactions or miss communicate among adversaries that would make limited war difficult to maintain. One of the things that developed in that book is the process is supported by a surprising and interesting form of collusion. What youll see later on is a presentation of some of the raw materials, which show the degree to which the u. S. Was aware of covert soviet or Chinese Military involvement in some of the most important wars of the 20th century. Despite knowing that, they chose not to use that information as a political weapon and to stay quiet themselves about that. One thing that this means is part of how wed avoided world war iii has come at a steep price. It begins a conversation about the requirement of outright deception, misleading, deceiving the american and other publicly publics. Not just trivial matters, but who was killing whom. We might know now, and i might be able to show you evidence of the truth of the covert side of the korean or vietnam war. It means the stories we tell about those wars in the conventional sense is sometimes not accurate. Its a bit to be wrestled with. While the book is historical, it raises some questions that are of clear relevance for today in a world of cyber conflict, for example, where the attribution or deniability of acts of aggression or coersion is at the center of debate about what to do with that form of conflict and escalation dynamics remain a challenge for actors that are working in that space. What i want to cover today is review some of the main ideas of the book, which have two components, conceptual or theoretical argument and historical findings and narrative that i draw out in the book of the book. Then im going to walk you through some of the archival evidence. It showcases some of what the Wilson Center did for the project. That has provided some of the raw material for the claims i make in the book. And also because its fun to look at things that used to be secret. I want to lay out the basic argument. I developed a limited war theory of secrecy. I want to start by stepping back and laying out some of the basics and defined what the book is doing. I asked two questions specifically in the book. First, why do governments, major powers intervene in an ongoing conflict . The second question, why in instances of covert intervention, might an adversary collude in keeping that intervention secret . Its important to clarify that when i talk about Covert Military interventions, and i think this is an important point, covertness is the intention to conceal a specific sponsor of an action. The intention is to keep it secret and not officially technology. It doesnt mean that secrecy is always 100 effective. Just to take an example for the book, the u. S. Intervention in laos during the vietnam war was regularly reported in american newspapers and yet, when you read the declassified material from the leaders managing that program, they were bending over backwards and engaging in incredible linguistics twistings with the american role in laos. The doesnt mean their role was over my definitional use of the term. It means it was more of an open secret in a cap wellkept secret. The book is framed by two conventional intuitions or scholarly explanations for what governments will be doing with secrecy. One is the traditional Operational Security logic. Loose lips sink ships. Wartime secrecy is a resource that, once used at the expense of the other side but it to protect once forces in the field or engage in surprise military maneuvers. The other is, especially in american context, is to handle antiwar or reluctance to go to the war. If a leader thinks they require intervention, but you have domestic public that is asleep at the wheel or is opposed to the intervention, secrecy may be a way to get around that. There is a lot of truth to both of these. These logics, especially the Operational Security one, is consistent with and can accompany the logic i will layout. They are too simplistic in doing secrecy number one as it being at expense of an adversary. I tell a collusive story in this book that is interesting. It suggests there is something more complicated going on. Theres also something more complicated going on at the domestic level. Domestic populations and reactions are not always a force for restraint. They can be something that makes it difficult and costly for leaders to act with restraint. I developed a distinct logic for secrecy that is anchored in the process of fighting limited war. Especially in the modern era. I use that answer of what does secrecy do in war to answer both of my questions. Its a reason to engage in the first place and it is a reason why, if youre an adversary and you witness your arrival using a comfort intervention covrival using a covert intervention its in your best interest to keep quiet. I boiled down into four points. The first one is escalation of military complex, a Regional Convention conflict or above, and the Current International is ruinously destructive. All states try to avoid conflicts reaching that level. Thats the starting point of the argument. I date that particular reality, or the perception and appreciation of it to world war i, Chapter Three of the book, that kicks off this story i tell. Secondly, i argue that control and not just cost you less, costliness, in the modern era, is incredibly difficult. Controlling a war and scope and scale of it is very difficult in the modern era. Two reasons. One is domestic politics and the problem of hawks rather than doves. If you are following the news out of india and pakistan, some were saying that the force that pushes the hand in pakistan or india and forth over kashmir was the fear of looking weak. In a democracy, that can be a significant problem. If the military in pakistan views a leaders decision as too weak in the face of a rival, that could be the end of the government. That can make control of the escalation and people start after people start dying, out of control. The other is the mystification problem. Its difficult to know mystification problem. Its difficult to know if you are ready to engage in limited war, if the other side is going to as well. It takes two to tango. The book gets into something that hasnt been analyzed in the field of International Relations with as much care as it should be. Which is, how do governments, through their behavior or words, but mostly behavior, communicate their interests in keeping conflict limited. They are going to get involved with an intervention but they want to keep controlled and geographically limited. How do you communicate that to an adversary . The third point in the theoretical argument is that covert methods of intervention address those two escalation control problems. The problems of domestic policy and miscommunication. It allows you to provide arms or military personnel to one of the sides of the conflict that you support without humiliating and major power that might come in on the other side. That is, you dont do your intervention in a way that creates domestic constraints for those reacting to your intervention. That helps retain escalation control even as you enter and put your thumb on the scales of the conflict. The second mechanism that i develop is a little more subtle. Thats that adversaries appreciate that their counterpart has three options in the modern system. They have dont intervene, overtly intervene, and covertly intervene. When you witness the other side engaging in covert intervention, that can indicate something. That tells you theyre willing to do more than nothing. Theyre also more restrained and doing the maximum. That can indicates a mix of resolve, because its nor the nothing, and restraint, because its something less provocative than the most extreme alternative. I will show you some evidence in a second about how that interpretation helps support and reinforce and provide a useful signal that one is interested in controlling the scale and scope of war even as one intervenes. In the theory chapter, if you do pick up a copy, you will see i draw parallels to everyday life. I draw on sociology, my intuition from this was from a sociologist. The fluidity and the viscosity of social life is not pointing out flaws that other people have, its looking the other way, is the art of saving face. A lot of what my story about covert dissent secrecy is about, is in appreciation of the way that getting both sides of the opportunity to save face is an way to avoid afortat cycle of escalation. The fourth and last point and then i will move on, is one of the byproducts of this secrecy limited war process im developing in the book is the unexpected uses of secrecy. Number one is the collusion stuff. If secrecy is serving the focus of Operational Security or protecting your own leader from a dovish domestic reaction, there is not a lot of reason why the other counterpart, the adversary, should keep secret about that intervention if they detect it. A limited war logic does. If they also share an interest in supporting their interests, but not having conflict get out of control, theres a reason to collude in keeping secret or on the backstage and aspect of war which might drive escalation. The other byproduct of this is the open secrecy situation. I mentioned earlier, what i argue in the book is that seeing your adversary even after their covert intervention has been exposed to a certain extent, maintain that fiction that they are not involved, can become a sort of grammar or communicative mechanism to say, they still want to keep this under control. That provides a logic for why open secrets can be useful. In the book, i develop this argument and make a historical claim and a series of chapters devoted to individual conflicts. The Overall Historical coverage of the book starts with world war i. The end point is the u. S. Occupation of iraq, 10 years ago. World war i, i make an argument about how the nature of escalation, or the appreciation of how a situation works changed after world war i. This communication became much more salient. The destructiveness of a conventional nonnuclear, but conventional, global scale conflict was graphically and tragically displayed in that conflict. That sets the wheels in motion. That sets the wheels in motion for the development of new ways of intervening in the war which i talk about in the interwar. As interwar period as a. A time of experimentation. It showcases the first case study that i look at, which is the spanish civil war. A series of external interventions by italy, the soviet union and germany, which were members of the nonintervention committee, but were actively participating in the war. They never owned their participation. They call them volunteers as a way to conceal them. I then pick up the pieces after world war ii and look at the korean war, looking at the external interventions and the secrecy dynamics in that conflict. I have a chapter on the vietnam war. At the end of the cold war, in soviet occupied afghanistan, looking not only at the u. S. Assistance to afghan rebels, but also covert soviet crossborder operations pakistan, for example. Also a short section on the u. S. Occupied iraq. There also two key themes about the historical arc. Escalation control problems are recurrent issues. And that most of these most important conflicts of the century have a covert aspect to it which is important to understand. Now i want to review some highlights from two of the chapters to show you some of the raw material that i worked into the narratives in those case studies. Im happy to talk about some of the other conflicts i just discussed in the book. First, the korean war. External interventions that i analyze in that are the u. S. , which intervened on the south the side of south korea. China, it is hard to describe their intervention. There were clearly visible Chinese Ground troops that entered in 19. And the soviet union, which very effectively kept its role secret. They sent pilots that engaged with the u. S. My focus today is on the soviet role in the air war. That was the origins of the book any dissertation it is based on and one of the most interesting aspects of it. I talk about some soviet documents first. They came from the Wilson Center. One of the soviet documents that we now have access to was translated end of war report by the commander of the soviet air division that was sent to engage during the korean war. That included figures, and internal report, for accounting purposes in the soviet military bureaucracy. They reported soviet aircrews, which entered in november 1950 and state active through the end of the war, shut down 1097 enemy aircraft during the war. Enemy being american aircraft. They suffered 319 soviet aircraft and 110 pilots that were killed. The missions they were flying were to protect bridges that spanned the river that divides china from north korea. The airfields in that area and hydroelectric stations as well. This was not just for a couple of weeks. This was a sustained operation for a few years. This included specific messages about the logistics of doing a Covert Military intervention. One of the documents that came from the Wilson Center collection was a cable that was sent from stalin to a military official in november of 1950. It was authorizingits in russian, i had to have it translated. It indicates and gives instructions to provide and send troops with secret training manuals which had been approved in 1950 earlier, and to allow the were minister of the soviet union to allow to send men into russia korea, wearing soviet uniforms, but changing into chinese uniforms when they get to china. They pretended like they were the chinese. This was picked up on and noticed by american pilots. They noticed a plane flying effectively, using world war ii era tactics, which we knew the chinese didnt have, but the markings on the plane were north korean or chinese. The other was one of the other logistical things that came up, another one a company Wilson Center, is from the notary commander in charge in both korea, veselnitskay. Vasilevsky. Stalin, and im glad this it wasnt me having to do this, at the same time, we consider it necessary to report that our pilotswork will be discovered by u. S. Troops right after the first air combat, because all the control and command over the combat of the air will be conducted by our pilots in the russian language. Here, they realized the tell. The town would be their communication in russian language and it would be detected by the u. S. September of 1950, before the soviets and stalin and the decision to send pilots. Something they did in november. This language issue is one of the funnier anecdotes that came out of this research. At the end of the cold war, americans were trying to find veterans of the korean war and interview them. On that they interviewed, was that the instructions they received to speak in chinese were dangerously unrealistic. It worked until the first real fight in the air, but we forgot no not not only our chinese commands, but russian words, too. This language issue wasnt just a joking matter. It was detected by the u. S. As anticipated in that cable to stalin. A lot of the signals that are sent are not declassified still. Thats ridiculous, to be honest. Some of it snuck out. I found this in the National Security archives at uw g. W. The proportion of to medication spoken in russian, chinese and korean, they were intercepting, summer of 1952, it indicates in the top row, if you can see it, russian, 90 of the chapter was in russian. 90 was in chinese 9 was in chinese. 0. 01 was in korean. Their inference was that 90 of the flights were flown by russian pilots. One concern you might have is that this was something that was known by those that could hear signals, and i was surprised to see references to soviet participation and not just a little bit, but a significant amount circulated intelligence assessments. They began in the summer of 1952 and have circulated throughout the u. S. Intelligence community and the top policy or consumers of intelligence at the time. Its attempting to assess and understand the korean abilities in the war the time it includes a discussion in which the u. S. Assesses that the combat performance of the communist forces is significantly higher than we would expect unless soviet personnel are doing the flying. That includes the real kicker. There are indications that soviet iparticpation in air operations into a proxy war between the u. S. And the ussr. There was sustained combat between the u. S. And soviet personnel at the beginning of the war. The vietnam war is another conflict i spent a chapter talking about. I spent all of my time talking about the 196568 time of the war. Secrecy plays a different role before and after that time. It plays a role in the initial justification for the american entry into vietnam secrecy underneath and was famously a way for nixon to handle antiwar sentiment. From 6568, the real problem was johnson feeling pressure from his right. That he was looking too soft in the face of the north Vietnamese Vietcong aggression, and by extension soviet and chinese aggression. I look at the external interventions of the u. S. , china and the soviet union. I want to focus on china and the soviet union. The chinese sent over 100,000 military personnel into North Vietnam. Most of them were performing transit reconstruction, places that the u. S. Bombed, railroads and things like that. They were rebuilding for supplies. Airfields and other sites as well. They sent people to protect those personnel. Antiaircraft artillery crews, who functionally shot down a bunch of american flight crews. They had a bunch of deadly encounters with the u. S. One of the interesting things is that u. S. American american intelligence analysis spent a lot of time taking about what the chinese were doing and what did it mean. Heres an intelligence analysis from a state Department Intelligence analyst. He notes that the chinese communists have been in the vietnam war, a 1967 analysis, in a number of ways, avoiding a larger confrontation with the united states. They had done so in a number of different ways. Indicating their interest in keeping things limited. That was despite the fact that they believed to be up to 50,000 chinese troops in North Vietnam. Theyre working in engineering roles. And antiaircraft units are chiefly concerned with protecting chinese troops. That has the same effect of protecting north Vietnamese Air defense. To that extent, the chinese presence is not to be more of a contribution toward hanois defense than a sign of chinese willingness to get involved in the war in a meaningful way. Were just covert form and the scope of how the u. S. Was designing chinese intentions. Soviet role was in Missile Systems that they provided North Vietnamese after the u. S. Bombed North Vietnamese urban centers and other sites. The missiles were topoftheline, very sophisticated, and not able to be operated by North Vietnamese by a period of months. The soviets provided personnel to operate them and shoot down american planes. I will show a couple of slides and wrap up. First, an estimate in which the u. S. Interest of dates the soviet Union Providing fa to wos in the guise of technicians. They could preserve the option to ignore any soviet casualties. This was the americans anticipating the deniability of soviet involvement would be part of the way they could not react to american infliction casualties. President ial daily briefs have signals intercepting intelligence. The u. S. Intelligence firing sa2s on their death after we bombed those sites. This is september that indicates soviet personnel are Manning Communications complex involved in missile activities and concludes overall control is still in soviet hands. Two months later, a report on the president ial daily brief on North Vietnam notes that yesterdays airstrike caused soviet casualties. The conversation refers to one comrade killed and four wounded. The term comrade was reserved for soviet personnel. The overall conclusion from those two conflicts is that this level of sustained casualties was something that was not publicly discussed, but was an important facet of the war. It showcases the way secrecy was used to limit war. It led to a distorted understanding of what happened in these wars. With that, i would be happy to hear peoples comments or questions. I would be happy to fill in parts of the details of the book that i was not able to discuss. Thank you for listening. [applause] i do not pretend to be an expert in this area, but my initial question is, you talk about the importance of secrecy in terms of limiting the war. My general understanding is, not only because there might have been a desire not to escalate, but you do not want to let the other side know what you know. If you publicize that the soviets are very engaged, and you highlight the fact that they are all speaking in russian, and that is easy for you to listen to them, do you tip the russians that they have to do a better job in trying to hide their communications . From a secrecy and intelligence standpoint, is it better just to let your adversary engage in these kind of nonsecure communications, or would you rather highlight them, and maybe face the consequences of suddenly not having access to these communications . Great question. This is a sources and methods problem that is in u. S. And other intelligence services. That is some of the new research i am doing on my new project that focuses on this. There is more than one reason to stay quiet if you have detected the covert activity of a rival. Limited war dynamics are one. Another one is we will lose that source of detection now or later if we go public with it. I think that is part of the story that helps support this process. If you know that, and you are a covert intervener, it only makes it more permissible for you to intervene in a way that is detectable. There are two reasons the other side would probably keep quiet. In the book i highlight the political rationale, rather than the intelligence rationale. The two go handinhand often times. I try to make the case that when there are discussions of this, which are pretty rare to find them, the discussion is in terms of the political register. If we go public, what will we do . If we dont do something severe, we will look bad. I cannot hear you. We are working on it. Speak loudly. That is better. The way you framed it makes it look like all of these powers, or those engaging in covert warfare are doing so more or less in the same playing field, on the same level. I am just wondering if you look at, in the book, or in your current project, at how different powers or actors used covert warfare more or less effectively . Is this affected by levels of technology or development in technology . How is that changing, my surveillance. And how it undermines the effectiveness. Great question. I would be the first to admit that there are variations in the effectiveness and feasibility at issues you are getting at. A variation among countries in the feasibility of conducting these operations. In the book, i do not get into that a lot. I want to bracket the question of operational effectiveness. Did it meet its goal . And tried to emphasize instead why do so in this mode of covert, and why support that and that collusive way . I think the issues you mentioned in your question, there is definitely differences in how this unfolds in open societies, democracies, versus how this can unfold in closed societies. The easiest way to illustrate that is, the reality of how the u. S. Could engage in these operations. In vietnam, for example, they had a free media. They had people knocking on doors and cornering people at the bar saying, what is up with these reports about munitions being dropped in in laos. That does not exist if the press pull is there is a degree in which democracies engaging this have in a historical position in the book had to accept the reality of open secrecy that i think was less certain in the case of a closed society, which is an obvious difference. I think that does go back to effectiveness. Reporting on u. S. Operations is part of the reason it soured on the conflict overall. It led to greater congressional constraints on what the white house could do. There are other reasons why soviets had failures in their covert interventions. The unwanted exposure by the free press within the soviet union was not one of them. That is an unfortunate, from an effectiveness standpoint, the difference between those two governments. Thank you. I had a chicken and the egg question. You stated, as far as i understood in the beginning, the Nuclear Threat has perhaps been overrated to some extent in explaining these types of conflicts. Isnt there an instance of going handinhand that it is can one argue that it is a Nuclear Threat that forced the soviets, americans, and others to operate in this kind of way . I understand the spanish civil predated it, but we do have world war ii after world war i. The section of world war i was unsuperceded within a generation. My question is, can we a couple these can we uncouple these . My goal in the book is not to argue that Nuclear Weapons are not fundamentally a part of the story of why escalation is so unacceptable in the modern system, but rather to show it is unnecessary to produce the escalation that can give rise to these dynamics. I think it is a handinhand thing. Once the threat of of mutual annihilation is consummated after world war ii, that provides more reason to refine these techniques. The spanish civil war is so interesting because nobody had nuclear technology. The rhetoric and the discourse of the cables among the capitals of europe is about a conventional, industrialized war in europe. That was seen to give rise to the same sort of experimentation and use of covert techniques and secrecy and volunteer language that it fostered. I dont think we disagree. We completely agree. My analytic point was to show that this is not a unique species or product of a nuclear era. It is not strictly necessary to produce it. The implication is that you could find the situation in the middle east among two countries that do not share Nuclear Weapons, second shrike capabilities. You might see a similar resort to covert techniques without that shared Nuclear Threat because they feel a regional with conventional forces would be ruinous. That is why i did not want my argument to be artificially bounded. I totally think it changed the world and a lot of ways. I see a lot of hands. Lets start in the back. Thank you very much. My question is about [indiscernible] the opportunity to have archives open. With the information on the ongoing conflict the report had members on the ground, monitors of the european union. What would be your recommendation, or how do you see [indiscernible] for the example of war in russia and the ukraine . How can your lessons can be applied to new sources that are available now . Did you look at u. S. China Cooperation in the war in afghanistan . Down in front, right here. I look forward to reading the book. My question to you is, is there any sense in which covert intervention could actually signal weakness and invite escalation in the sense of, if i intervened covertly, that would seem to suggest i am holding open the hope i could speak out without a political cost. I had a chance to engage in costly signaling and i did not, which then could tempt the other side to the ethical the escort torilla latter escalatoraly latter. I will work backwards. Great questions on this signaling effectiveness. I had a lot of discussion with my coauthor. We had a separate article about looking at the resolve signal that could be sent. We had a discussion about this through reviewer comments. We landed on the side of it depends on what your Reference Point is. If before you witnessed this covert intervention, you saw the intervenors most likely action was to stay out. Then you see covert intervention. You say, wow, they are willing to take on some risks. You are right that they are not doing it in a way that invites maximum political costs, but it invites more costs and if they just sat on their hands. If your baseline is, they have overtly intervened in similar situations, but they must really not give a hoot about the particular one. It is about your assessment of their constraints. I want to make the case that it displays a mix of resolve and restraint. I think a weakness signal is possible if you had a more extreme expectation. The question about u. S. China Cooperation afghanistan. I did not get into a lot of depth. I would have loved to. My sense was that the u. S. And china had at least some coordination of we will support the afghan rebels, but we will not do it in a synthesized way. It could have been more and i just never saw an indication. As a practical matter, you look at the chapter that is about four interventions, covert soviet intervention before they invaded. The soviet invasion, the American Intervention after the soviets invaded, and thats covert activity and pakistan, i had to draw a line. There is an interesting topic if you love to talk offline and have detailed historical nuggets you want to share. Last question, in the modern era of crowdsourcing and social media we dont have to wait as long. I agree with your characterization that the media environment is different. There is some real meaningful democratization for access to information that reduces the degree to which governments can bottle this up. I think your example of ukraine and russian involvement of ukraine is an example of where that stuff is getting out faster than it used to. I think it opens up opportunities to be able to diagnose and describe covert interventions it makes collusion a little bit tougher if you are unable to react to that intervention. It seems to create less of an incentive to try to engage in that deception. I have been thinking about that practical part. You have to be careful with crowd sourced information because it has not been validated in the same way. But crowdsourcing is a validation, it invites its own methodological way of understanding whether something is accurate or not. Down in front here. I wonder if part of the problem isnt that covert intervention is not part of a continuum, it is hard to differentiate. You take the chinese pilots, you have trained them, you give them the planes and they take them back. Then you have your technicians sitting there fixing the planes. Finally, youre talking about the unusual situations. You send somebody in the cockpit. The period that might have been interesting to look at is right before the outbreak of world war ii when, again, we were trying, for example, in asia, we were trying to help the chinese within the limits of what we could do. The other side is, the germans, before they invaded poland and slovakia, already supporting paramilitary groups. Once they crossed the border it opened up for them. The question is, a couple of hundred pilots is not so different. Then we have the other issue of clear cases where there are just two forces. But what is typically the case is, just the thing with pakistan. Pakistan said it is a rogue group of terrorists we cannot control. The u. S. Says you cannot control it, legally you are responsible to control it. You do not have to put covert conflict i wonder if you dont have to put covert into that type of context . I was wondering about allies in covert intervention. Some of these are trilateral, a couple of actors, then the space gets messy and you need to coordinate. Even if you have allies that are not intervening, when do you let them in . That might be something you are working on in yourusecond project. The first set of comments, first on the spectrum, all the combat operations, is it really that different to put them in the cockpit versus not . Two comments on that. Number one, i think this is part of what keeps people up at night. I imagine. I dont know. Part of what makes it difficult to establish whether that threshold has been crossed. The fact that you can go up to it and not cross that threshold is not easy to tell. I see a lot of discussion of that. Are they in a combat operation . We think they are, but we are not sure. The problem of observers and their inferences. I think one of the things that is interesting is, an obligatory shot shout out to him. He is showing the conceptualization of limited war about how these blinds that help keep or limited are often times without meeting. Meaning. You detonate a Nuclear Weapon and you can do the same thing with ice picks. It is in our head that Nuclear Weapons are different. I think that is what is interesting. Part of what my Research Shows is that this combat versus noncombat rolesis what matters for legal authorization. It seems as a symbolic step to take. When you have soviets do that in afghanistan, that is when intel reporting really picks up on covert intervention. It is and is not. It has a lot of symbolic significance. You mentioned some preworld war ii cases. Those are the ones i would have loved to look at. I saw tidbits of countries doing what seemed like covert intervention, and preceding. I would have loved to do that. It is a great idea. I think you are right about more than two actors. When you get autonomous groups, you have this similar dynamic. You get deniability either through concealing what you are doing, or dressing up your soldiers to look like someone else, or you get some control over it. I think the framework travels over it. I will do an event in which we will do that experimentation of transporting into that context where it we had a question about context. We had a question about allies. Did our allies in the soviet war know . I try to not get too bogged down. The Coalition Warfare raises Information Security issues. If you allow that information to retractors, there is more chances of leaks, and you get more input on whether or not you should do something. That would be an interesting spin on the project. Looking at the differences to which coalition or nonCoalition Warfare is taking place, and the feasibility of doing these things covertly. It is a great idea. Right here. Your comments about u. S. Involvement on the african continent . It seems that the large intelligence operations are aware of the efforts of the u. S. [indiscernible] and the people on the ground. [indiscernible] the conflict is more often from the American People to the extent they are engaged until they reached the tipping point. Great question. The question in case anyone did not here, it is about u. S. Special forces, and other operations in africa right now. What are my comments on the concern being that it might turn into a political crisis, or Something Like that. I do not think there is a whole lot of escalation stuff to worry about. There is no cold war anymore. Or at least not yet. In the african continent there is polarization, which characterizes all of the other conflicts. I think it is more of a domestic story as you think it is. And an example of example of how secrecy has and is in a bunch of different democracy. We should match them up where they make sense and then we can think about whether it is justified or not, and if we deserve access to information. I will bring the conversation to a close. You mentioned the word several times about the viability. Deniability since we did have a recent experience of little green men with no sign of who they belong to, is this notion of possible deniability in the feature of russian and soviet activity a broad . I think you might be the better person to answer that question and its essentialness to that particular country essentiallness to that particular country. One of the things i talk about is the book in the book is that you dont even have to have plausible deniability and there could be used to not owning what you are doing. These are open secrets. Everybody with half a brain knows that those are Russian Military personnel with modifications. That could still have a diplomatic effect, maybe a domestic effect of not owning it. Why are they trying so hard if it does not . Number one, what of deniability . I think it is interesting putin reached into a bag of tricks for the cold war with these insignia modifications. It is something that happens over and over in these crusty old cases. He has reached into the bag of tricks and intervention that shows it is like an Institutional Knowledge that he picked up on and has used. The last thing i have said when i have been asked about this particular issue is, we should not overreact to the meaning of this kind of activity. In some ways i think that kind of operation is a reflection of weakness. I get the sense that this hybrid warfare is what russia will do and we have to counter it. There are really tough policy questions. We should be happy that we are talking about a lot of limitations and no insignia. That is a better world to be in. I tried to emphasize that this is an installation of a caution of some kind. Thank you austin. I want to thank the title a program, War International history program. The book is secret wars. It is available outside. Thank you for coming. Thank you. [applause] i said then that i was making that decision despite our