Regime change is a policy mechanism involving the use of military force to remove leadership and/or political power structures from another state. It is a powerful tool when used for legitimate purposes. But it should be used sparingly, and with a deep understanding of the risks that can arise when regimes are forcibly overthrown.

A growing scholarly consensus finds that foreign regime-change operations rarely achieve the desired political, economic, and security goals; instead they spark civil wars, lead to lower levels of democracy, increase repression, and pull the intervening power into lengthy nation-building projects. The regime-change model also puts US national interests at risk by undermining the effectiveness of other tools that more effectively advance democracy and human rights around the world.

The argument that regime-change policies are the best way to achieve our strategic goals is based on flawed assumptions and an insufficient understanding of how difficult it is to create stable post-regime states. Overthrowing a government forcibly can cause that country’s military to disintegrate, and it often drives a wedge between the regime’s external patrons and its domestic proteges.

The US has an opportunity to help Venezuela and avoid a bloody civil war by allowing the National Assembly’s leader, Juan Guaido, to assume presidential power. But it is important that the decisionmakers in Washington are not blind to the reality that their preferred solution may end up doing more harm than good — and that they are not ignoring the lessons of America’s failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.