As the debate continues over the future of Venezuela and Iran, some are calling for a return to covert regime change. But the United States should not get into that business again. Not only does the strategy often fail to achieve its stated goals, it harms other important tools of American statecraft and weakens the international order that it helped to create.
The myth of regime change is that it’s easy to topple a foreign government and that the replacement will immediately bring about good policy outcomes. Yet the record of American interventions in the past two centuries shows otherwise. From occupying the Dominican Republic in the wake of its 1898 revolution to oust Victoriano Huerta, to attempting regime change in Cuba, Vietnam, Haiti and Iraq, America’s history of armed intervention in support of regime change is littered with failures.
When the US military crushes a foreign regime with “shock and awe,” it may impress the world at the time, but its consequences can be long-lasting and profoundly damaging. For example, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 left a political vacuum that allowed Iran to fill. Similarly, the removal of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 left a swath of instability across north Africa that fed the Syrian civil war and facilitated Europe’s immigration crisis.
Trying to change foreign regimes often proves difficult, expensive and dangerous. The United States should not take the risk of pursuing regime change until it can demonstrate that it is prepared to engage in a lengthy state-building mission and can achieve predetermined policy goals. The unsatisfactory results of decades of regime-change attempts should make American officials very wary of taking that path again.