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Biography

Paul is an expert on US and UK security and intelligence interventions within the Global South. His work focuses on intelligence liaison, non-Western intelligence cultures, disinformation, and covert action.

His research has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; the British Academy; the Mellon Foundation; the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford; the British Library's Eccles Centre for American Studies; the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston; the American Historical Association; and the Centre for Policy Studies, New Delhi.

Paul joined King's from the University of Nottingham, where he worked on a major AHRC-funded project, Landscapes of Secrecy: The Central Intelligence Agency and the Contested Record of US Foreign Policy, 1947-2001, which explored the role played by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in shaping official narratives of American foreign policy.

He is an alumnus of the AHRC's 'Engaging with Government' programme, run in partnership with the Institute for Government, and completed a British Science Association Media Fellowship to engage the wider public in policy-related research.

Paul is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society.

Research Interests

  • Intelligence Studies
  • South Asian intelligence & security
  • Intelligence agencies outside the Anglosphere
  • Anglo-American intelligence liaison
  • Disinformation
  • Covert Action
  • Cold War History

Paul leads research in the field of British and American intelligence interventions in South Asia and the wider Global South.

His current research focuses on the evolution of non-Western intelligence cultures and networks of transnational intelligence liaison and joint operations inside the Global South.

Teaching

Paul teaches on concepts, issues and debates surrounding the utility of intelligence in war, and the role of diplomacy in international crises, at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

  • Intelligence in War Studies (BA2)
  • Diplomacy and Crises (BA3)
  • Intelligence in Peace and War (MA)

Publications

Book
1st Jan 2024

Spying in South Asia: Britain, the United States and India’s Secret Cold War

McGarr, P., 2024, (Accepted/In press) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 252 p.

Research output: Book/ReportBookpeer-review

Review article
1st Sept 2010

Allies Against the Rising Sun

McGarr, P., Sept 2010, In: INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW.32, 3, p. 565566 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Sept 2015

Forged in Crisis: India and the United States since 1947

McGarr, P., Sept 2015, In: DIPLOMACY AND STATECRAFT.26, 3, p. 564566 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Sept 2016

Toward Thorough accurate and Reliable: A History of the Foreign Relations of the United States Series

McGarr, P., Sept 2016, In: Library and Information History.32, 3, p. 227229 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Sept 2016

JFK's Not So Forgotten Crisis

McGarr, P., Sept 2016, In: DIPLOMATIC HISTORY.40, 4, p. 782785 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Nov 2017

JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA and the Sino-Indian War

McGarr, P., Nov 2017, In: War in History.24, 4, p. 558560 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Aug 2014

Joseph Chamberlain: Radical Imperilaist

McGarr, P., Aug 2014, In: INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW.36, 4, p. 799800 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Dec 2011

The Empire Project: The Rise and fall of the British World System

McGarr, P., Dec 2011, In: INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW.33, 4, p. 732734 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Jan 2019

The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War

McGarr, P., Jan 2019, In: EUROPEAN HISTORY QUARTERLY.49, 1, p. 166168 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Oct 2012

NSC 68 and the Political Economy of the Early Cold War

McGarr, P., Oct 2012, In: Journal of Contemporary History.47, 4, p. 904906 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Oct 2018

Shadow States: India, China and the Himalayas, 1910-62

McGarr, P., Oct 2018, In: Economic and Political Weekly.53, 40, p. 59 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Review article
1st Jan 2018

Tthe defiant Border: The Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands

McGarr, P., Jan 2018, In: H-Diplo | ISSF Forum.

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

Book
1st Jan 2013
Book
10th Oct 2019

India at 70: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

McGarr, P. & Maxey, R., 10 Oct 2019, Abingdon: Routledge. 138 p.

Research output: Book/ReportBookpeer-review

Article
1st Jan 2023

The Neo-Imperialism of Decolonisation: John le Carré and Cold War India

McGarr, P., 2023, In: Intelligence and National Security.38, 2, p. 271-28414 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Article
1st Jan 2021

Fake News, Forgery, and Falsification: Soviet Disinformation in Cold War India

McGarr, P., 2021, In: INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW.43, 1, p. 3453 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Article
1st Jan 2020

From Russia with Love: Dissidents, Defectors and the Politics of Asylum in Cold War India

McGarr, P., 2020, In: The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.48, 4, p. 736779 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Article
1st Jan 2019

The Long Shadow of Colonial Cartography: Britain, the United States and the Sino- Indian War of 1962

McGarr, P., 2019, In: The Journal of Strategic Studies.42, 5, p. 626653 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Article
1st Jan 2019
Article
1st Jan 2015
Article
1st Jan 2015

‘“Do We Still Need the CIA?”: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Central Intelligence Agency and US Foreign Policy

McGarr, P., 2015, In: HISTORY.100, 340, p. 275-292

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Article
1st Jan 2014

“Quiet Americans in India”: The Central Intelligence Agency and the Politics of Intelligence in Cold War South Asia

McGarr, P., 2014, In: DIPLOMATIC HISTORY.38, 5, p. 1046-1082

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Article
1st Jan 2011
Article
1st Jan 2011
Chapter
1st Jan 2020

“Berlin of the East:” India and the Politics of Cold War Asylum

McGarr, P., 2020, Neutral Countries as Clandestine Battlegrounds, 1939-1968: Between Two Fires. Gerolymatos, A. & Smyth, D. (eds.). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, p. 225253 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Chapter
1st Jan 2018

India’s Cold War Spy Chiefs: Decolonizing Intelligence in South Asia

McGarr, P., 2018, Spy Chiefs: Intelligence Leaders in Europe the Middle and Asia . Moran, C., Maddrell, P., Stout, M. & Iordanou, I. (eds.). Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, p. 183203 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Chapter
1st Jan 2016

Unquiet Americans: The Church Committee, the CIA and the Intelligence Dimension of U.S. Public Diplomacy in the 1970s

McGarr, P., 2016, Reasserting America in the 1970s: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the Rebuilding of America’s Image. Notaker, H., Scott-Smith, G. & Synder, D. (eds.). Manchester: Manchester University Press, Manchester, p. 195211 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Chapter
1st Jan 2016

Britain, the United States and the Sino-Indian War

McGarr, P., 2016, New International Perspectives on the Sino-Indian War of 1962. Das Gupta, A. & Luthi, L. (eds.). Abingdon: Routledge, p. 105123 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Chapter
1st Jan 2015

Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Subversive: India, Pakistan and the Cultural Politics of Cold War Intelligence

McGarr, P., 2015, Negotiating Independence: New Directions in the Histories of the Cold War & Decolonization. Leake, E. & James, L. (eds.). London: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, p. 285302 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Chapter
1st Jan 2013

"Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism?’: The CIA and the Representation of Covert Operations in the Foreign Relations of the United States Series

McGarr, P. & Jones, M., 2013, Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US: Historiography since 1945,. Moran, C. & Murphy, C. (eds.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 6389 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Chapter
1st Jan 2012

The Office of Strategic Services

McGarr, P., 2012, The Oxford Companion of American Military and Diplomatic History. Milne, D. & Nichols, C. (eds.). Oxford: Oxford Univerity Press; Oxford

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Chapter
1st Jan 2012

An Economist with Guns: John Kenneth Galbraith and the Sino-Indian War of 1962

McGarr, P., 2012, Diplomats at War: The American Experience. Netherlands: Republic of Letters Publishing, p. 185203 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Chapter
1st Jan 2009

Uneasy Partners: Kennedy, Macmillan, and the Utility of Anglo-American Intervention in South Asia during the Early 1960

McGarr, P., 2009, Transatlantic Relations: Conflict and Consensus: Culture, History and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., p. 123143 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Chapter
1st Jan 2024

Brother’s Keeper: India’s “Secret Wars” and the Lure of Localism

McGarr, P., 2024, (Accepted/In press) National Approaches to Covert Action. Cormac, R., Long, M., Lester, G., Stout, M. & Van Puyvelde, D. (eds.). Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review