An unexpected negative consequence or reaction to an action, especially when it harms the person who started it; can also mean a literal blast of air going backward.
From 'blow back' (two words), combining 'blow' (force of air) with 'back' (return direction); first used in mechanics and guns, then adopted by CIA analysts in the 1990s to describe unintended consequences of covert operations.
The CIA popularized 'blowback' to explain why their covert operations kept backfiring—the term perfectly captures how actions in foreign countries often loop back to harm America—and it became a key concept for understanding Middle East conflicts.
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