Why Paramilitary Operations Fail - Armin Krishnan Gebunden

This book analyzes U.S. pro-insurgency paramilitary operations (PMOs) or U.S. proxy warfare from the beginning of the Cold War to the present and explains why many of these operations either failed entirely to achieve their objective or why they produced negative consequences that greatly diminished their benefits. The chapters cover important aspects of what PMOs are the history of U.S. PMOs how they function the dilemmas of secrecy and accountability the issues of control criminal conduct and disposal of proxies as well as newer developments that may change PMOs in the future. The au thor argues that the general approach of conducting PMOs as covert operations is inherently flawed since it tends to undermine many possibilities for control over proxies in a situation where the interests of sponsors and proxies necessarily diverge on key issues.