Regime change refers to a foreign government’s covert or overt interference in another state with the goal of overthrowing the ruling regime and replacing it with a new one that better matches an outside nation’s political goals. Since the United States stepped onto stage as the “world’s police” in the wake of World War II, it has been involved in several overt or covert regime-change policies. The goal of these policies is typically to spread democracy or advance economic interests abroad. These policies are often fraught with danger for the countries involved, and in many cases have backfired.
While some policymakers may argue that armed intervention is a necessary tool for bringing more democratic governments to power and creating better humanitarian conditions, the evidence shows that regime-change operations are more likely to fail than succeed and often produce insecurity and human rights violations. Moreover, the unique circumstances that allowed for success in the past – such as those found in post-World War II occupations of Germany and Japan – are unlikely to be replicated anywhere else.
The key reason why regime-change missions so often fail is that they are typically not designed with local conditions in mind. They are based on the assumption that opposition leaders will unflinchingly support American political goals. This ignores the fact that opposition leaders are not always democratically elected and are susceptible to a variety of cognitive biases. It also overlooks the fact that there must be a sustainable distribution of economic power in order for democratization to work. Otherwise, the pendulum swings toward autocracy or religious fundamentalism that have been observed in Iran and Libya are inevitable.