One of the reasons regime change is so risky is that the downside risk very often dominates upside potential. As we know from the Anna Karenina Principle, named from Leo Tolstoy’s novel, to get something right, all key factors must be present, while failure can occur by simply lacking just one. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” goes the famous quote. The chances of casting Scrabble tiles on a board and, through chance, forming an actual word are much lower than the odds of getting gibberish.
Because it is easier to get something wrong than right, if a regime is only slightly bad, it is probably better to leave it alone. However, as a regime gets worse, the relative probability of getting something better by reshuffling the deck begins to draw level. Eventually, people might be willing to try anything in the belief that nothing could be worse. History shows that populations facing a monotonically worsening situation nearly always reach a point where they resort to desperation because there is “nothing to lose”.
The Weinberger Doctrine concluded from experience in U.S.-led regime changes in Germany, Japan, and Panama that there were two important conditions required before the regime change dice should be rolled. First, there must be a vital U.S. interest to justify the high cost of war and occupation. Second, during the attempt, the U.S. should make an intense, costly, whole-of-government effort to see occupation to a successful end. Both conditions were met in 1940-45 because the threat was sufficiently serious and the need to preserve the gains of victory was so compelling.
But lessons from WW2 and from the opposite end in scale, the invasion of little Panama in 1989, are hardly the ideal guide to policy in the 21st century. The bad experience of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan soured Western governments against attempting regime change, even when the threat from them is serious. It seemed Japan and Germany, as organized societies, were countries you could defeat, occupy, and rebuild, while Iraq and Afghanistan typified countries that would only become dependent parasites if you were unfortunate enough to beat them.
Yet the world is full of Afghanistan-like societies. Broken states characterize the 21st-century world. International organizations list around 39 entities (e.g., Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, DRC, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq, Lebanon, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, plus others like Burundi, Chad, Venezuela, etc.) that are either “failed,” high-conflict, or institutionally weak areas right on the doorstep of Europe and America.
From 2022 to mid-2025 in West and Central Africa (Françafrique), France was driven from key former colonies and allies in the Sahel and beyond:
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Mali ( 2022)
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Burkina Faso (2023)
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Niger (2023–2024)
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Central African Republic (2022)
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Chad (completed early 2025)
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Senegal (completed July 2025, ending a 65-year presence)
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Ivory Coast (withdrawals began January 2025)
In many cases, these ‘states’ replaced France with Islamism. Jihadist groups (primarily JNIM/al-Qaeda affiliate and Islamic State Sahel Province/ISGS) have expanded operations and territorial control. The Sahel accounted for 51% of global terrorism-related deaths in 2024. This has wider implications. International agencies warn this could “exponentially increase” migration waves via Libya to the Central Mediterranean. In the Western Hemisphere, Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Guatemala were becoming weak or narco-states operating a “Cocaine Superhighway” into North America and Europe.
Failed states are at the gate of civilization, too full of chaos to risk fighting. But the reality is that Western governments have to contemplate regime change, however much they dislike the prospect. To get around the problems of Iraq-like “nation-building,” one might effect regime change incrementally so that the downside risk is limited by the preservation of the enemy’s status quo structure itself; to never replace a hostile regime with chaos.
This is notably being tried by the second Trump administration. Instead of invading hostile states with large ground forces, it has used a discontinuous series of actions to continuously nudge states in a preferred direction, rather like a tugboat pushing a ship rather than boarding it and seizing the helm. To use a construction industry metaphor, the Trump approach to regime change more closely resembles renovating and remodeling an old building rather than demolishing it and replacing it with a new structure.
For example, in January 2026, President Trump announced U.S. strikes on Venezuelan targets, culminating in the capture and arrest of Nicolás Maduro. This followed months of escalatory actions like vessel seizures and port strikes. Trump explicitly stated the U.S. would “run” Venezuela temporarily until a transition, with U.S. control over key oil revenues and infrastructure.
Cuba, once the planned target for invasion during the Kennedy administration, is instead being subjected to brutal economic pressure (often described as an incremental buildup toward collapse or negotiated transition) without direct military overthrow or occupation contemplated. After Maduro’s removal cut off Venezuelan oil supplies, Trump issued executive orders declaring a national emergency, imposing tariffs on third countries supplying oil to Cuba, tightening the long-standing embargo, and restricting remittances/travel.
Operation Epic Fury against Iran, for all its violent destruction of Islamic Republic infrastructure, also seems to rule out large-scale invasion or occupation. The price for this avoidance of occupation is a lack of finality. Like Venezuela and Cuba, OEF is open-ended. We don’t know if we are at the beginning or the end. In fact, the Twelve-Day War against Iran in June 2025 can reasonably be viewed as an earlier stage — or precursor — of the current Operation Epic Fury, which began on February 28, 2026. The two conflicts share a continuity in objectives, particularly around neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile capabilities, and weakening regional proxy threats. But there is no definitiveness to it. OEF itself may be Part 2 of a continuing series of gradual regime change efforts against Iran, one battle in a greater war on chaos that has no name.
Will incremental regime change work better than one-time nation-building? That is a question for future historians to answer. All the current generation can say is that the tides of entropy are lapping round the World Order, and if regime change ever becomes necessary again, it may follow the incremental Trump model rather than the one-time Bush approach.
Related: Belmont Club: The Newer World Order
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