Regardless of whether regime change is a policy goal or merely a tool to achieve goals, it must be carefully weighed and vetted against America’s national interests. In a time when the United States faces a rise of authoritarian, anti-American governments across the globe, it would be wise for American officials to stop engaging in covert regime change efforts that can make these problems worse rather than help solve them.
Regime change is the overthrow of a government considered illegitimate by an external force and its replacement with a new regime in accordance with that foreign force’s ideas or interests. A common view is that regime change policies, such as those undertaken in Grenada, Panama, and the post-World War II occupations of Germany and Japan, make the world a safer place by fostering democratic regimes that are less likely to engage in aggressive foreign policy.
But the evidence shows that forcibly overthrowing foreign governments to promote democracy and advance American interests rarely succeeds as intended. Indeed, research on regime change reveals that armed missions to supplant odious regimes are often costly, destabilizing, and can result in the emergence of populist, authoritarian governments hostile to U.S. interests.
Despite this poor track record, many American officials continue to favor regime change. This is largely due to cognitive biases that lead them to focus on the desirability of the goals and avoid considering the full resources required to implement a regime-change mission. This mindset is dangerous because it makes regime-change missions prone to spiral into lengthy state-building projects that fail to meet predetermined objectives.