Regime change is when a country, covertly or overtly, interferes with the leadership of another nation to oust that government and install a new one. Advocates of regime change policies tout these interventions, which can range from backing a military coup to overtly supporting a particular politician or political party, as essential tools for advancing American security and foreign policy interests.
In practice, regime-change operations have a much lower rate of success than their advocates advertise and often generate deleterious side effects. These can include civil wars, lower levels of democracy, increased repression, and the trapping of interveners in lengthy nation-building projects.
This article takes a hard look at two common mindsets that drive regime-change advocacy in the United States. The first is the belief that a foreign polity’s leadership is corrupt or does harm to its people, making it ripe for overthrow. This belief overlooks the fact that if a foreign leader is doing such harm, there are ways to address it without regime change, such as using sanctions and diplomacy to pressure the government to change its policies.
The second mindset is that a foreign government’s failure to embrace American values makes it ripe for overthrow. It also overlooks the fact that, when imposed by outside forces, a foreign leader often faces an internal audience in addition to its external patron. This dual constituency frequently wants different things, and taking actions that please one side invariably alienates the other. Attempts to forcefully impose one’s own values on foreign populations can thus create internal division and weaken the authority of a newly installed foreign leader.