The term “regime change” refers to the forcible removal of a national government by external actors, often with the use or threat of military force. While regime change has long been a foreign policy tool of choice for some, it is an ineffective strategy that generates serious costs far outweighing any purported benefits. In addition, overuse of this tool undermines other, more effective tools that can better advance American interests and promote democracy and human rights around the globe.
Policymakers are drawn to regime change because it is a politically viable goal and because of misguided assumptions about the process of bringing about reform. For example, officials may not consider the length of a mission that would follow the overthrow and they may underestimate the amount of resources necessary to sustain the new institutions that must be built after regime change. This can create a false sense of feasibility and lead to policies that are too costly.
In addition, regime-change efforts typically fail to achieve their desired goals, or they generate blowback that is far worse than the original problem they set out to solve. This is because the United States rarely knows enough about the societies it seeks to transform to anticipate a receptive local population or to devise the kind of political institutions that will be embraced by that society. The most common failures are those that involve covert interventions, which have a far more worrisome record than overt interventions.
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