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Maria Ryan, The president's kill list: assassination and US foreign policy since 1945, International Affairs, Volume 101, Issue 2, March 2025, Pages 752–754, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaf044
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Extract
One of the perennial debates in the history of the United States' foreign relations is the extent to which it has (or has not) been informed by the country's professed ideals. Is there really such a thing as US exceptionalism? Readers of Luca Trenta's absorbing new history of assassination will be hard pressed to avoid the conclusion that the US has been acting as a ‘normal’ country rather than an exceptional one. Trenta's meticulously researched book is based on extensive archival research and interviews with senior national security officials. It offers the definitive history of assassination in US foreign policy. Complementing existing research on targeted killing in the twenty-first century, Trenta provides a longer history of assassination that predates the tech-driven expansion of remote targeted killing in the ‘war on terror’. Although the subject-matter is controversial, his prose is measured and his analysis nuanced and empirically rich.
Trenta demonstrates that, since the early days of the Cold War, US officials have carefully preserved the legal and logistical capacity to conduct assassinations against foreign state officials in peacetime, either directly or indirectly (working with local proxies). After the practice was ostensibly banned via a 1976 executive order, senior officials engaged in extensive ‘legal work’ designed to undermine the ban (p. 8). According to Trenta, US officials used deliberately ambiguous and circumlocutory language to refer to assassination (pp. 10–11). At the same time, the meaning of these words was clear to those in the room and those tasked with completing the assignments (pp. 100 and 195–6). Undoubtedly, the avoidance of explicit language reflected a desire to keep such operations secret and avoid reputational damage in case of leaks. Whether it reflected ethical misgivings is unclear, as this is not Trenta's focus.
