Why Regime Change Doesn’t Work

On Thursday, September 22, Dartmouth hosted Alexander B. Downes, a Professor of Political Science at GWU, to talk about the subject of his new book. Entitled Catastrophic Success: Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Goes Wrong, the book does exactly what you’d expect it to do. In a back and forth conversation with Professor Jason Lyall of our very own Government Department, followed by a question-and-answer session, Downes outlined his argument as to why regime change is often counterproductive. 

The talk started with about ten minutes of back-and-forth humble bragging about each professor’s illustrious awards and positions. Not wanting to waste any more time though, they quickly transitioned into the talk itself. Professor Lyall began with a basic outline of terminology. To summarize for those of you who have the good fortune to not be government majors, regime change can occur via invasion, threats, or coercive operations—think James Bond eliminating a dictator because he failed to bow low enough at the Queen’s funeral. Lyall argued that regime change was most successful when it entailed restoring a previous government, particularly a democratic one, that had a pre-existing base of support. In contrast, he found that aggressive regime change, even when its goal is to install a democracy, fails most of the time. Now anyone who was watching the news last year knows that the US hasn’t been too successful at installing democracies, so the interesting part of Lyall’s argument is not what happens but why. Lyall’s main points are the disintegration of armies, the problem of competing interests between the puppet and the puppeteer, and faulty information on the part of the party undertaking the intervention. 

To that last point, Lyall argued that often foreign powers simply do not know the situation on the ground in their target country. He points to the example of the French invasion of Mexico, when Napoleon the Third invaded the nation while we were busy dealing with a few traitors down south. Apparently, Napoleon III and his Austrian puppet Maxamillian were under the impression that the Mexican people really wanted some random European to be their emperor. Anyway the Mexicans started shooting back and the French did what the French do best and ran away, leaving Maxamillan behind to become the subject of the firing squad painting on the book’s cover. Lyall’s second contention is best encapsulated in America’s invasion of Afghanistan. Our installed ruler, Hamid Karzai, used corruption and the drug trade to maintain his power. Our puritan morals would not allow for such a thing, and so Karzai had to choose between domestic support and support from his foreign backer. Further, Karzai wanted us to cause fewer civilian casualties, while we wanted to drone strike everything so as to reduce our own losses and make the invasion more palatable at home. This problem of competing interests often destabilizes installed rulers and decreases their legitimacy whenever they choose their foreign backers over the people they are supposed to protect. The first point is another American speciality. Turns out the American military is so damn effective that it suffers from its own success. Lighting fast destruction of an enemy’s command structure and cohesion may lead to quick victories, but it also leaves thousands of unemployed soldiers wandering the countryside to join resistance groups and terrorist militias. Truly, we are too good. 

Lyall concludes from these factors that regime change is pretty much doomed to fail. He says the only instances in which regime change was completely successful occurred after the total annihilation of the target country’s military and governmental structure. He cites Germany and Japan after WWII as the primary examples of this. Both countries were defeated so totally that the US could impose the government that it saw fit. Accepting these circumstances as unique, Lyall concludes that regime change is a waste of resources. However, those of us with a little more ambition and imagination may come to a different conclusion. If successful regime changes occur after total defeat of a nation, we simply have to achieve total victory whenever we attempt it. From the ashes of the defeated tyrants we can then build a shining beacon of democracy. And I am not alone in experiencing this revelation. Cato the Elder once said Carthago Delenda Est. Rome razed the city and salted the earth, and the Roman Carthage built in its place lasted for over five hundred years.