Whether you’re concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela or you oppose the idea of US intervention in general, you can agree that regime change is often a bad policy. The United States has a poor track record in overthrowing foreign governments and its attempts usually lead to more conflict than they prevent.
One reason for the failure of regime change is that it violates a key norm of American democracy: mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance. Both require that the American people accept rival contenders for power and recognize their legitimate exercise of it. This principle is in tension with the need for American leaders to make their foreign policy decisions based on what they think will serve American interests.
Regime change operations typically have a single goal: to replace an existing government with one that will better suit the foreign nation’s economic or political interests. The underlying assumption is that the current regime does not care for or protect its own citizens and that if it were replaced with a more friendly government, its citizens would benefit. This view is flawed and misguided. It overlooks the fact that there are many forms of bad governance and that not all of them require violent oppression to be corrected.
It also overlooks the fact that overthrowing foreign governments is rarely a short and simple mission. It is almost always a lengthy institution-building operation and it is prone to spiraling into more complex and expensive military interventions. The scholarly consensus on the difficulties of forcibly removing foreign governments is well-documented, but cognitive biases prevent many policymakers from considering the evidence against regime change. Taking the time to study this literature will allow policymakers to avoid the pitfalls that have historically plagued forcible regime change.