Trump's challenge to Venezuela's president could lead to a military occupation. Here's why -- and...

Trump’s challenge to Venezuela’s president could lead to a military occupation. Here’s why — and why that’s dangerous.

By Benjamin Denison January 24 at 7:45 AM

President Trump recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate leader of Venezuela on Wednesday, rejecting Nicolás Maduro’s increasingly contested status as president. That action prompted speculation that the United States might intervene in Venezuela’s extreme economic and political crisis, which has left thousands starving and without medicine. An estimated 250,000 have fled the collapsing economy for neighboring countries, with thousands more leaving each day.

In November, national security adviser John Bolton gave a speech in which he called Venezuela part of the Western Hemisphere’s “Troika of Tyranny.” The Trump administration announced Wednesday that “all options are on the table” for Venezuela, refusing to rule out military intervention.

So far, there are no signs that military intervention is being planned. But academic research shows that any effort to overthrow the Maduro regime is most likely to end with the U.S. military occupying the country for a long time, whether policymakers planned for one or not.

Trying to change a foreign regime generally fails

Even though there is a long history of regime change missions in Latin America, they rarely succeed in making the targeted country change its politics. Political scientists Alexander Downes and Lindsey O’Rourke recently explained here at TMC why regime change is unlikely to work in Iran — and why it so rarely works anywhere.

Regime change is especially likely to fail when the outside power is attempting to build new domestic institutions. In fact, the result is often increased civil conflict, as we’ve seen in Iraq. Even covert regime change operations, as O’Rourke has shown, result in blowback against the power behind the overthrow — and fail to achieve their goals. And in Latin America, where the United States has a long and fraught history of intervening, recent research shows that such efforts worsen economic relations between the United States and the targeted nation.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2019/01/24/trumps-challenge-to-venezuelas-president-could-lead-to-a-military-occupation-heres-why-and-why-thats-dangerous/