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Power Problems • December 27, 2022 

# Covert Action and International Law 

Does international law actually impose real constraints on states? Michael Poznansky, associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, discusses why states choose to pursue overt vs. covert action, the role of plausible deniability, and the “hypocrisy costs” associated frequent violations of the non-intervention principle.

**Show Notes**

- [Michael Poznansky bio](https://www.michaelpoznansky.com/)
- Michael Poznansky (2021), “[The Psychology of Overt and Covert Intervention](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09636412.2021.1951833?journalCode=fsst20),” *Security Studies* 30, no. 3 (2021): pp. 325–353.
- Michael Poznansky,*[ In the Shadow of International Law: Secrecy and Regime Change in the Postwar World](https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-International-Law-Secrecy-Postwar/dp/0190096594)* (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).
- Michael Poznansky, “[The Appeal of Covert Action: Psychology and the Future of Irregular Warfare](https://mwi.usma.edu/the-appeal-of-covert-action-psychology-and-the-future-of-irregular-warfare/),” Modern War Institute, September 6, 2021.
- Michael Poznansky, “[Revisiting Plausible Deniability](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402390.2020.1734570?journalCode=fjss20),” *Journal of Strategic Studies* 45, no. 4 (2022): pp. 511–533.
- Martha Finnemore, “[Legitimacy, Hypocrisy, and the Social Structure of Unipolarity: Why Being a Unipole Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be](https://omnifoo.info/images/Finnemore%20Unipole%20Hegemon%20Hypocrisy%20Legitimacy.pdf),” *World Politics* 61, no. 1 (January 2009): pp. 58–85.

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This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

##### Michael Poznansky 

Associate Professor, U.S. Naval War College

![John Glaser](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-01/John%20Glaser.jpg?itok=-uvxR8zG) 

##### John Glaser 

Host, Power Problems Podcast

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](https://twitter.com/jwcglaser)