Regime Change In Venezuela

A sensible anti regime change article written in the Council on Foreign Relations’ magazine Foreign Affairs. (The CFR will occasionally publish something that isn’t entirely propaganda)

It goes over the dozens of American attempts at regime change in Latin America and other regions. The USA has never achieved regime change in any nation solely with air power and sanctions.

Regime change always requires boots on the ground. And in the past, not a single regime change operation has led to a pro democracy, peaceful regime. Instead interventions have always led to more brutal dictatorships, chaos and civil wars in the countries.

Even if the United States could launch a ground invasion Venezuela. However, the forces the administration currently has in place would not get the job done. In early October, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that a ground invasion would require at least 50,000 troops. Trump could, theoretically, assemble such a force. But launching a major invasion would starkly contravene his loud and repeated opposition to sending U.S. troops on foreign adventures and risk fracturing his base. Most observers downplay the invasion scenario, instead anticipating, as military experts told The Atlantic in October, a “push the button, watch things explode” campaign. It is also worth recalling that the United States could not control Iraq—a country half the size of Venezuela—with more than three times as many troops in 2003.

Read the full piece below

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/venezuela/regime-change-temptation-maduro-trump-venezuela

Alexander B. Downes is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University and author of Catastrophic Success: Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Goes Wrong.

Lindsey A. O’Rourke is Associate Professor of Political Science at Boston College, a Nonresident Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and author of Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War.