He is an assistant professor in the department of Political Science at the university of chicago. He has published widely already. The american journal of Political Science the journal of politics and security studies. He has already launched on his second book progress which is very ambitious. This analyzes the role of Sensitive Information and secrecy and international organizations. He received his phd from ohio state in 2013. He was a Summer Research scholar under the title a program in 2013. So with that i turn the floor over to austin. Thank you so much. Thanks also for all of you for coming up. It is great to be back here at the wilson city. I really appreciate the support. The support of the Cold War International history project. And a shut out for all that you have done to make it possible to come out here. I want to talk about this book. A simple, but profound question. Which is how we as an International Community avoid world war iii . The first half of the 20 century, we have so far managed to avoid it. The answers that scholars have given, has to do with the spread of democracy. The development of Nuclear Weapons, or the structure of the international system. And one of the arguments is a sort of provocative and i think it an interesting claim, a non obvious reason. Secrecy. I argue that the factors, the spread of democracy, are insufficient to prevent the logical, geopolitical agreements. Civil wars happen. Interest, opportunistic or defensive remain. In the clashes of interest, militarized disputes, that could escalate to larger and larger conflict. For the bar, limited war, is difficult, very hard to sustain. The adversary may not respect the same form of restraint. So in this book secret wars, secrecy, specifically about the military. This can emerge and take manifestation on the battlefield. So a specific use, as i said, hiding external military interventions. This the focus is on covert actions. So the secrecy dynamics that surrounded. Usually this allows governments with major powers to conceal efforts of conflict, which would otherwise my draw political reactions or miss communicate among the adversaries in a way that would make war difficult to maintain. One of the things that i develop in this book is the process that is supported by an interesting form of collusion. The presentation of some of the raw materials, which for the United States for example, despite knowing that decided not to use that to stay quiet themselves. But the one thing, we have avoided world war iii, this comes at a price. What the book lays out, it begins the conversation about this deception, this misleading to the American Public and to other publix. Who is killing him. We might know now in i might be able show you evidence, but it means the stories that we tell about the war in a conventional sense, is sometimes just not accurate. So well i think this is historical, it raises some questions about the clear roles today. For example, where the attribution of aggression and coercion and the center of debate about what to do about that, the escalation dynamics are a challenge for actors working in that space. So what i want to cover today are the main ideas of the book. The conceptual or theoretical argument. The historical narrative. And then specifically im going to argue, in part because the showcases what the wilson city did for the project, providing the raw material. Also because it is fun to look at things that used to be secret. First i want to lay out the basic argument. I develop a limited war theory of secrecy. I want to step back first and define what the book is doing in talking about. So i asked question specifically in the book, why do governments, major powers intervene militarily in an ongoing conflict . Why did he do it overtly and covertly . Second, i ask why, why would an adversary colluding keeping something secret. It is more to clarify, i think this is an important point, covert this is the intention to conceal a particular policy action. The intention is to keep it effectively secret and to not officially acknowledge. This does not mean that the secrecy is always 100 effective. Just to take an example from the book, the intervention during the vietnam war, at a certain point, american newspapers revealed declassified materials. There were incredible linguistic contortions, to not reveal the role. It just means that this was more of an open secret. The book is framed by two scholarly explanations. What are governments doing with secrecy . One of the is the traditional loose lips, sink ships. What argues at the expense of the other side, was a price military maneuvers. Especially in an american context is to handle the entire war, among the people. Sofa leader thinks that the United States reputation of regional security, but you have a domestic public that is either asleep at the war wheel or opposed to that, secrecy me be a way to deal with that. These logics, especially the operational security, this can accompany glad to, i think that there are two cyst them systems. I tell a story that is interesting, it is one that suggests something more complicated going in. I also think there is something more domestically complicated going on. They can be something that makes it very difficult. So i develop a logic for secrecy that is anchored in the process of fighting a secret war. Especially in the modern era. To answer both of my questions, there is a reason to engage in covert, and if your are an adversary, this is a good reason for you to stay quiet about it as well. So willing down the argument, hopefully this will stick. Number one, i argue that large scale military conflict escalation, which is i defined as a regional conflict, is ruinously instructive. Basically, most try to avoid conflicts reaching this level. This is the first part of the argument. I did this for the reality or lease the perception of world war i. This kicks off the story. Second, i argue that the controlled escalation, in the modern era is very difficult. Modern kinds of politics, start in controlling war, it is very difficult. I. 2 two reasons for that. Number one, domestic politics. If you were following the news with pakistan last week, specialists were saying that part of the force that may have pushed them back and forth over cashmere, this could be a significant problem in a democracy, even if it is not a democracy could be a problem. Saying that the leaders decision is too weak in the face of a rival. The other problem is is the communication problem. Which is, it is difficult to know, whether people want to engage in limited war. It takes two to tango in a limited war. It is going to be unlimited and way. So the book gets into, it has not been analyzed as much care as a should be. Their behavior communicates their interest in keeping the conflict limited. They want to get involved, but they want to keep it controlled and geographically limited, lets say. The third points in this theoretical argument, the covert intervention addressees two control problems. The problem of domestic cost and communication. So one of the things that that does is this allows to provide arms and military personnel to the side that you support, without humiliating a major power that may coming on the other side. If you dont do your intervention and away that creates domestic strain, reacting to your intervention. First of all, that helps retain escalation control. The second mechanism that i talk about is a little more subtle. I think adversaries appreciate that there counterpart has three options. Dont intervene, covertly intervene, and overtly intervene. It says that theyre willing to do more than nothing. But they are also more restrained, which would be an overt intervention. This communicates a mix. It is something less provocative than the alternative. I will show you some evidence. How this interpretation help support and reinforce, provide a useful signal, that one interested in controlling the scope and scale. If you did pick up a copy of the book, i draw some parallels from everyday life. I draw from sociology. To understand war dynamics, he talks a lot about the fluidity of social life, this is not pointing out flaws that other people have. It is art of saving face. This is an appreciation for the way that both sides, saving face is one of the ways of avoiding escalation. One of the byproducts of this secrecy limited war process is some unexpected uses of secrecy. Number one. If secrecy is serving the function of operations, protecting your own leader from domestic reaction, this is a hold another reason that the adversary should keep it secret about this same action. A limited war logic, it has the shared interest of supporting those interest, but not having out of control. This is an aspect of war that might drive escalation. The other is the open sea situation. What i argue in the book is seeing your adversary, after they are exposed to a certain extent, maintains this. To actually become a communication, oh, they still want to keep this under control. So that provides this. Open secrets can be useful. So in the book, i make a historical, a broad historical claim. The Overall Historical coverage, start with world war i , the in point is the escalation of iraq. World war i i make an argument about how escalation works. It changed after world war i. Communication became much more salient. And the conventional, nonnuclear, global scale conflict was tragically displayed in that conflict. This set the wheels in motion for the development of new ways of interpreting war. Which i talk about. When governments are not just acting in intervention or staying out, but rather doing things covertly. And that period also showcases the first case study that i look at which is the civil war. It shows interventions by italy. Which, were actually participating in the work, but they never owned their participation. So that is the first chapter. I then pick up a piece of world war ii, and then i look at the korean war. Looking at the external interventions. I have a chapter on the vietnam war. A chapter at the end of the cold war. Looking at not only the u. S. Systems to the afghan rebels, but also the soviet operations in pakistan. And i have a short chapter, short section on the u. S. Occupied iraq. There are two key themes. Which is that escalation are the Current Issue in each of these conflicts and that most of the important conflicts of the 20 century have this covert aspect to it. This is important to understand. So now i want to review some of the chapters. To show you some of the raw material, the narratives in those cases. Im happy to talk about some of the other conflicts. So first the korean war. External interventions. On behalf of the u. S. And south korea. China, they called and relabeled the troops. They were clearly, there were clearly visible chinese forces. So, the soviet union kept their role secret. They provided the planes that engaged in the air war with the United States. This was the origins of the book. And one of the most interesting aspects of it, i think. So some of these soviet documents, that some of them came from the wilson center. One of the soviet documents, that we now have access to. This is the end of the world report by a soviet commander. It was sent during the korean war. This is an internal report, not for public consumption. Reports that the soviet aircrews , november, 1950, shut down an enemy aircraft. They suffered 319 soviet loss aircraft and 110 pilots. The missions that they were flying spanned the river and out rivers that went from china to north korea. So it provides a sense of the scale. Is not just for a couple of weeks. This was a sustained operations for a couple of years. And this included, this includes specific messages about the logistics of the military inventor intervention, which i think are interesting. One of the documents, was a cable that was sent from stolen to a military officials. This was actually authorizing, i had to have it translated. It indicates the instructions to provide and send troops with secret training manuals that had been approved into quote allow the soviet union to send personnel into china in soviet uniforms and then prior to arrival in china they will change into chinese uniforms. So this is part of how they did their covert action. They pretended like they were the chinese. This was picked up by another spy. They say that this fly was plane was flying awfully effective. But the markings on the plane were chinese. One of the things that came up, another one is from the military commander in charge in northern korea. This is to stalin. He tells stalin , at the same time we consider it necessary to report that the pilots will inevitably be discovered after the first air combat. They will be conducted by our pilots. So here they realize the tell, right . Like in poker. The communication in the russians language. Funny enough, the language issue is one of the funnier anecdotes that came out of the research. An american journalist try to find this and interview them about it. The instructions that they receive to speak in chinese while they are flying the missions. Saying that it worked until the first real fight in the air. This language issue was actually detected by the United States in that cable to stalin. A lot of the signals are declassified, to which is ridiculous, to be honest. I found these in the collection papers by the National Security archives. In which it features a early analysis of the communications that they were intercepting. I dont know if you can see it, 90 of the chatter was russians. 90 percent of the flights were being flown by soviet pilots. One thing that was known. It was a clear signal, basically. This was a reference to the soviet participation, not just a little bit. It was widely circulated. Even the National Intelligence estimate, which was circulated throughout the intelligence community. Which was tempting to , to underestimate their capabilities at the time. In which the u. S. Asserts that the combat performance of the communist forces is significantly higher than we would expect. Are there indications that soviet participation in the korean war, exist. This was no individualized, isolated incident. This was sustained air combat between the u. S. And soviet personnel at the beginning of the cold war. The vietnam war is another chapter, another conflict that i spend eight chapter on. I spend all of my time talking about 1965 through 1960. Secrecy plays a different role before and after those periods. The initial justification for the entrance in the conflict. And the subsequent relational operation. Nixon, there is a way for him to handle antiwar sentiment. The real problem was johnson feeling pressure. So i look at the external secrecy. I want to focus on china and the soviet union. The chinese sense over 100,000 military personnel into north vietnam. Most of them were performing, placing u. S. , they were rebuilding. And airfields and other sites. In a sense, they sent people to protect those people. They functionally shut down a bunch of american flight crews. They had a bunch of deadly encounters with the u. S. The american intelligence analysis spent a lot of time thinking about what the chinese are doing and what does it mean. Here is an analysis from a state department analyst. Saying that the chinese analyst had been in the vietnam war. In a number of ways avoiding concentration with the u. S. They indicated their interest in keeping things limited. There were believed to be 30,000 to 50,000 troops in vietnam. They were working in construction and engineering and antiaircraft artillery. They are deeply concerned with protecting those chinese troops. To a great extent, the chinese presence is thought to be more of a contribution to them. There we analyze the covert form , as part of the u. S. Divining chinese intentions. What they provided the north vietnamese, after the bombing. The service to air missiles, these systems were sophisticated and not able to be operated by the north and the means. The soviets provided personnel to operate them. And to shoot down american planes. So i will show you a couple of quick slights. First, the special National Intelligence estimate, where the u. S. Anticipates that if the soviet union were to provide this, which would allow the soviet union, this was the americans anticipating that this would be part of the way that they would not react to american casualties. This was classified a few years ago. This notes the u. S. Detecting soviet personnel. And number two, them after we bombed their sites. They jointly manned communication sites. This includes overall in soviet hands. Two months later, were report on north vietnam. The soviet airstrike. One killed, four winded. The overall conclusion from those two conflicts is that this level of sustained casualties, that was not publicly confessed. I think this showcases in a way that secrecy dynamics were used in an interesting way. But its distorted what exactly happened in these wars. Im happy to hear peoples comments and questions. Will be happy to fill in some of the details. Thank you for listening. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you so much, austin. I dont pretend to be an expert. But my question, initially, before we throw this to the floor, is you talked 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 dont want to let the other side no what you know. So if you publicize that the soviets are very engaged in the highlight the fact that they are speaking in russia and and it is easy for you to listen to them, this is not necessarily tell them that they need to do a better job of trying to hide their communication. The secrecy at from an intelligence standpoint, is it better to let your adversary engage in these nonsecure communications . Or would you rather highlight them . And then suddenly not have access to these communications. By understand right, oftentimes in the u. S. Intelligence community and other intelligence agencies, im glad that you asked about it. This is on my second book project, this focuses on this. There is more than one reason to stay quiet. A limited word dynamic are one, and forcing once and we would lose that protection. If you go public with it. I think that is one part of the story that helps support this. I think that if you know that, and you are a covert intervener, it makes it more permissible to intervene because you know that there are two reasons that the other side will probably keep quite. In the book, i have the operational, i think oftentimes these go handinhand. I try to make the case that it is rare to find these. If we go public with this, what are we going to do about it . We are going to look really b