Regime change refers to a policy that seeks to replace a foreign country’s leadership with one more aligned with the interests of an outside power. This usually means overthrowing a non-democratic government, but the term can also be used to describe covert operations that fall short of war. A regime change policy typically involves multiple policy tools – diplomatic, economic and informational as well as military.
The argument in favor of such policies is that an odious regime is doing harm to the local population and it would be better for them to have a new government that does not do this. The problem with this argument is that it represents a departure from Westphalian sovereignty where what happens inside the borders of a state are its own business. It is a violation of the principle that a government must be supported by its people and have their permission to govern.
This logic has led to a long history of American efforts to overthrow foreign governments for parochial interests. These include the US-backed overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, the CIA’s recruitment of Guatemalan exiles to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. This history has given rise to a broad scholarly consensus that regime-change missions are often ineffective and produce deleterious side effects. The evidence shows that forcible regime change is likely to trigger civil wars, reduce levels of democracy, increase repression and draw the intervening power into lengthy nation-building projects. Despite this dismal record, many in the political and policy world continue to support forcible regime change. They do so based on cognitive biases that make it difficult to think realistically about the cost and risks of these missions.