Overloads and underloads perturb steady state fatigue crack growth conditions and affect the growth rates by retarding or accelerating the growth. Clear understanding of these transient effects is important for the reliable life prediction of a component subjected to random loads. The overload effects have predominately been attributed to either plasticity induced crack closure behind the crack tip, residual stresses ahead of the crack tip, or a combination of both. These effects are critically examined in the context of the Unified Approach proposed by the authors. Recent experimental and analytical evaluation of crack closure has confirmed its negligible contribution to crack growth and has demonstrated that changes in the stresses ahead of the crack tip are more important than closure behind the crack tip. It is shown that the overload effects and other transient effects arise due to perturbation of the stresses ahead of the crack tip, and these can be accounted for by the two parametric approach emphasized in the unified theory. It is shown that related phenomena including the role of K max , the existence of propagation threshold K pr , and effects of overloads on K pr and K max etc, are all accounted for by the Unified Approach.