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 author 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.
