Catastrophic Success

In Catastrophic Success, Alexander B. Downes compiles all instances of regime change around the world over the past two centuries. Drawing on this impressive data set, Downes shows that regime change increases the likelihood of civil war and violent leader removal in target states and fails to reduce the probability of conflict between intervening states and their targets. As Downes demonstrates, when a state confronts an obstinate or dangerous adversary, the lure of toppling its government and establishing a friendly administration is strong. The historical record, however, shows that foreign-imposed regime change is, in the long term, neither cheap, easy, nor consistently successful. The strategic impulse to forcibly oust antagonistic or non-compliant regimes overlooks two key facts. First, the act of overthrowing a foreign government sometimes causes its military to disintegrate, sending thousands of armed men into the countryside where they often wage an insurgency against the intervener. Second, externally-imposed leaders face a domestic audience in addition to an external one, and the two typically want different things. These divergent preferences place imposed leaders in a quandary: taking actions that please one invariably alienates the other. Regime change thus drives a wedge between external patrons and their domestic protégés or between protégés and their people. Catastrophic Success provides sober counsel for leaders and diplomats. Regime change may appear an expeditious solution, but states are usually better off relying on other tools of influence, such as diplomacy. Regime change, Downes urges, should be reserved for exceptional cases. Interveners must recognize that, absent a rare set of promising preconditions, regime change often instigates a new period of uncertainty and conflict that impedes their interests from being realized.

Alexander B. Downes is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University. He is the author of Targeting Civilians in War.

In this thorough examination of strategies for regime change, Alexander M. Downes carefully attends to the significant international and domestic challenges for those who install new leaders, for those meant to be ruled by them, and for the leaders themselves.

Michael C. Desch, University of Notre Dame, author of The Cult of the Irrelevant:

Alexander B. Downes is among the best at applying sophisticated social science analysis to pressing foreign policy issues. Catastrophic Success brings big-data, tight reasoning, and a broad array of historical cases to bear on foreign imposed regime change.

John M. Owen, University of Virginia, author of Confronting Political Islam:

Thorough and transparent, Catastrophic Success addresses questions of great importance to makers of foreign policy in the United States and other great powers. Catastrophic Success is a major work.