Publication

This paper studies US covert operations in the Third World during the Cold War era and the ways in which proponents of the democratic peace proposition have justified them. After discussing US use of proxy forces in internal wars, the author discusses theoretical issues raised by the use of the category of inter-state war for analyzing forms of reciprocal organized violence between the First and the Third World. The paper argues that these forms of warfare are best understood as occurring between imperial and quasi-states in the context of informal empire, rather than between sovereign states.