While regime change is often demonized as reckless adventurism or imperial hubris, it can be a legitimate tool for achieving American goals. However, it requires the right conditions: a non-democratic government that is committing atrocities with substantial organized domestic opposition, and preferably a regional or broader consensus that this government must go. Then it is possible to use covert, non-lethal measures and if necessary, lethal ones, to assist this opposition.
It also requires a credible alternative to take over once the current government is removed. Otherwise chaos can ensue. For example, the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido claims to be the country’s legitimate president, and is backed by many countries. But if the United States overthrew Maduro, Guaido would be left in control with little legitimacy. That could spark civil war or allow factions that are as dangerous or even more so than the current government to rise in power.
A guiding principle is that forcible regime change should only occur when it is in the U.S. interest. Otherwise it is a recipe for disaster, as seen in the American morass in Vietnam or the botched intervention in Libya championed by George W. Bush and Barack Obama that left the nation effectively lawless.
It is not an easy task to achieve the right conditions for regime change, but it is important to do so because autocratic rulers like the Chinese Communist Party, the theocratic junta in Iran and the dynastic tyranny in North Korea will never give up their grip on history without a fight. If the United States makes it clear that the credible threat of regime change is on the table, it will serve as a formidable deterrent against the greatest threats to liberty in this century.
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