Covert Regime Change Operations Usually Fail And Often Backfire When They Succeed

Covert regime change operations work less than 40% of the time, and not infrequently backfire when they do work. 

But, they are popular with American Presidents, who ordered them an average of about six times per term prior to the end of the Cold War, because they are deniable for diplomatic purposes. They also cost a lot less money than a conventional military operation.

During the Cold War, the United States undertook an extraordinary number of attempts to overthrow foreign governments. These interventions were mostly conducted in secret, and the majority failed to achieve their aims. One recent tally identified sixty-four covert operations and six overt ones between 1947 and 1989, with less than 40 percent of the covert operations installing a new regime in power. 

Some of these failures are quite well known. The Bay of Pigs intervention in Cuba, for example, not only failed to remove Fidel Castro from power, but also brought Cuba closer to the Soviet Union and helped precipitate the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even those operations that appeared successful at the time often had negative repercussions in the longer term. This was the case in Iran, where the United States helped oust Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh from power in 1953—but in doing so, also fueled anti-American sentiment and contributed to the 1979 revolution.

Why would the United States continue to pursue a strategy with such a poor track record? The central contention of Michael Poznansky’s fascinating and well-researched new book, In the Shadow of International Law: Secrecy and Regime Change in the Postwar World, is that the explanation lies in international law. In 1945, the principle of nonintervention, which holds that states should not violate the sovereignty of others, came to enjoy the status of international law through incorporation into the charter of the United Nations and subsequent adoption in the charters of the Organization of American States and other regional organizations. Once it did so, overt efforts to oust foreign rulers from power became costlier. States that abrogate their formal commitments undermine their credibility and open themselves up to accusations of hypocrisy.

From here.