researchers acquired access to translated and transcribed recordings of high-level meetings between Saddam Hussein and his top advisers.43 Access to all these materials enhances our ability to interpret the behaviors observed.
Outline of the Book
Chapter 1 presents my argument. I explain why strong states opt to remove foreign leaders or regimes in weak states rather than negotiate settlements that would allow them to retain power. I also explain how targeted leaders respond when they know another nation seeks to depose them. I end with a discussion of alternative arguments, from which I derive testable hypotheses. In Chapter 2, I expand my argument to explain how stronger powers choose between overthrowing the target state’s leaders and overhauling its domestic institutions. I also address the costs and risks associated with these different forms of regime change and why decision makers sometimes anticipate regime change to be cheaper than it actually is.
In the chapters that follow, I subject my argument to a series of empirical tests. Chapter 3 presents the statistical tests of my hypothesis that the probability of FIRC increases with the strength of the target’s domestic opposition. I also discuss the quantitative measures that I use as proxies for the opposition’s strength and the variables for alternative arguments.
Table 1. Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Case Studies: Within-Case and Cross-Case Controls
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 present the case studies. In Chapter 4, I compare the Eisenhower administration’s policies toward the revolutionary governments of Guatemala and Bolivia, the latter having seized power in 1952, just as the first covert plot to overthrow the former was materializing. Both governments depended on the support of Marxist and communist factions, passed major agrarian and political reforms, and implemented policies that threatened the economic interests of American investors. Though the Eisenhower administration overthrew Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, it chose to support the Bolivian government, offering it what would become the largest per capita aid package in the world at that time.44
In Chapter 5, I compare the Soviet Union’s 1956 decision to negotiate with Poland’s Wladyslaw Gomulka with its choice a few weeks later to overthrow Prime Minister Imre Nagy of Hungary. Both Poland and Hungary experienced anti-Soviet protests, and both leaders responded with reforms to placate protestors and quell unrest. Nikita Khrushchev initially reacted to the Polish uprisings with threats of force and an attempt to push aside Gomulka. Yet ultimately, he conceded to Gomulka’s reforms. In Hungary, Khrushchev did the opposite. He initially accepted Nagy’s reforms, including multiparty elections. Overnight, however, Khrushchev changed his mind and launched an invasion to depose the Hungarian leader.
Finally, in Chapter 6, I examine the differing American approaches to former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. In the first two cases, I focus on the Bush administration’s decision in 2003 to impose regime change on Iraq but to renounce it in Libya, which had also supported terrorism, maintained programs for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and used chemical weapons. I then compare these cases with the Obama administration’s decision in 2011 to support an international coalition to topple Qaddafi. In addition, I examine previous US attempts to negotiate with and overthrow each leader.
In the Conclusion, I summarize my argument and explain how it expands our understanding of both regime change and war. I then discuss my theory’s major foreign policy implications. The first implication is that when the foreign power’s threat to impose regime change lacks credibility, the targeted leader can become more difficult to overthrow and to coerce. If the targeted leader anticipates the foreign power will use covert and/or indirect methods, or that it may be bluffing, the leader may take defensive measures to make regime change more costly to impose. By aligning with the foreign power’s rivals, conducting domestic purges to wipe out potential political rivals, or acquiring WMD, targeted leaders may be able to safeguard their regimes. States making idle threats or using covert and indirect methods to impose regime change can, therefore, exacerbate a “rogue” state’s roguish behavior.
My theory also has implications for the coercive-bargaining literature. Conventional wisdom holds that politically weak leaders are more vulnerable to coercion than those with strong domestic support. My argument, however, indicates just the opposite. Politically weak leaders require additional incentive to comply when the opposing side’s demands could undermine their already fragile power. Politically secure leaders, in contrast, can make those concessions without jeopardizing their political survival. Although they may have other reasons to resist, all else being equal, their domestic strength should make them easier to coerce. My theory also suggests that what is commonly defined as a failure of coercion is often not a true failure of coercion. Rather, coercion may appear to fail because states tend only to use it when it is least likely to work—that is, when they lack a credible threat to use force. Once their threats become credible, however, they are often no longer interested in negotiating but prefer, instead, to impose regime change.
Lastly, although my theory is not designed to explain the success or failure of regime change, it suggests a number of reasons why FIRC may fail to deliver the substantial benefits and low costs policymakers often expect. In particular, the stability of an imposed regime depends on whether the former regime and its supporters can still pose a threat to it. When faced with domestic opposition, a new leader may prove just as unwilling or unable to cooperate as the former one. As a result, whether regime change pays off will depend on whether the foreign power invests the resources necessary to eliminate the domestic instability in the target state that led it to seek regime change in the first place.
One implication of this result is that regime change may appear more successful when preceded by a major war. A decisive military defeat makes it harder for the regime’s members and supporters to organize a challenge to the new one. In contrast, when regime change is imposed rapidly and with little fighting, as often occurs when great powers target weak states, instability may be more likely. In these instances, if the former regime and its supporters escape and are offered little incentive to recognize the new regime, they may launch an insurgency to challenge it. The foreign power may then find itself stuck in a quagmire as it supports its protégé. If it fails to provide this support, the new regime may be forced to concede to the opposition, potentially putting it at odds with the foreign power.
Nevertheless, even when the costs of regime change turn out to be higher than anticipated, this does not necessarily mean that states would have chosen to negotiate if better informed of those costs. Negotiated agreements can be costly to attain and maintain too. If policymakers are also reluctant to pay those costs, then their attempts to negotiate a sustainable agreement will fail also. Indeed, neither regime change nor coercive bargaining has a strong track record of success, in part because states seldom want to pay the variety of costs often required to make them work. States, therefore, will not necessarily abandon regime change when they experience failure, because they may have already concluded that coercion does not work either. Instead, their past experiences may simply convince them to adopt different regime-change policies. The fact remains that the conditions that lead policymakers to believe coercion is more costly than regime change are ever present. The world is full of militarily weak and politically vulnerable leaders. Regime change, as such, is a constant temptation. For this reason, FIRC has been an enduring feature of the international system and, for better or worse, will likely remain so.
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