Regime change is a popular policy idea that aims to replace foreign regimes with new ones that will promote American foreign policy goals. Its proponents have employed a wide range of techniques to implement it, including covert actions, proxy wars, invasions, and air power. But these policies almost always fail to achieve their goals and generate a host of unintended—and often catastrophic—consequences. Moreover, they almost invariably leave the United States and the citizens of the target country worse off than they would have been without the intervention.
As scholars have made clear, covert regime change is hard to get right. Even when it does succeed in its basic purpose—such as when the American-backed overthrow of the dictatorship in Chile resulted in a more democratic government that was friendly to America—it often sparks blowback and creates more problems than it fixes.
According to one estimate, there have been about sixty-four covert regime change operations since 1953. They have a remarkably consistent track record, with no clear successes, several catastrophic failures, and universally high costs and unintended consequences.
Amid the current controversy over democracy promotion, it is worth revisiting this track record to understand why regime change is so challenging and to identify the conditions under which a policy might work. To succeed, it is essential to develop a credible political plan that backs military action and addresses the broader challenges of creating stable post-regime development in the target country. Without such a plan, regime change is likely to lead to power vacuums, violence, and unintended consequences.