Alignment Instability and Covert Action: The Case of Portugal

Abstract

Why do states intervene covertly in some places and not others? This is a pressing question for theorists and policymakers because covert action is widespread, costly, and consequential. I argue that states wield it—whether by supporting political parties, arming dissidents, sponsoring coups, or assassinating leaders—when they fear that a target is at risk of shifting its alignment toward the state that the intervener considers most threatening. I probe this argument in the overlooked case of U.S. covert action decision making in Portugal between 1974 and 1975. The fall from power of a stalwart regime in Lisbon and the rapid rise of military officers with suspect views on international alignment spurred discussion in Washington of the possibility of covert action. My account is the first to show how U.S. efforts helped to preserve Portugal’s position in the NATO alliance and arrested the meteoric rise of the Portuguese Communist Party. Interveners, I suggest, do not employ covert action to add to their power. Nor do they use it to advance an ideology. Rather, states act covertly when they fear international realignment.