As the world grapples with the crisis in Venezuela, regime change — overt or covert efforts by outsiders to topple an illegitimate government and replace it with one that will better serve foreign interests — is again in the news. But it’s important to remember that this is a dangerous path, with few successes and many unintended consequences.
The main reason for regime change is that the target nation’s government poses a threat to a foreign power’s political or economic interests, usually by engaging in policies that violate international law or human rights. But the problem is that most regime change policies are based on narrow, parochial considerations rather than any principled interest in promoting democracy or advancing global prosperity.
For example, the United States has sought to overthrow a series of Latin American governments for narrow political or business reasons. Books like Bitter Fruit and The CIA in Guatemala offer an in-depth account of how the US engineered a coup against Jacobo Arbenz to protect the interests of the United Fruit Company, while the more recent intervention in Venezuela is designed to benefit corporate oil companies.
The truth is that most countries with the wealth to engage in regime change can get by using normal means – limited military action or non-military sanctions — to control a malfeasant state. The only time the goal of eradicating a regime emerges is when those normal options are no longer workable, and this typically happens when a totalitarian leader presents a clear threat to the global system.