War in the Shadows: Vol. 1 by Robert B. Asprey

“Intervention in another country’s affairs is a delicate manner at best. Whatever happens, the intervening agent is apt to reap the lion’s share of the blame if things go wrong and none of the resultant credit if they go right. Primarily for this reason, the objective of the intervening party must be sufficiently important to warrant the risk to prestige. Its importance can be defined only by a careful spelling out of one or more specific aims, as opposed to a conglomerate ambition made the more meaningless by the frippery of legalistic and moralistic window dressing. As an operating rule of thumb: the more vague the stated objective, the less the validity and, in natural corollary, the less the change of attainment.”

-Robert B. Asprey, 1975