One of the Top 5 Foreign Policy Lessons Learnt from the Past 20 Years

No. 3: The only thing worse than a bad state is no state.

U.S. foreign-policy elites routinely blame foreign-policy problems on the supposedly evil or illegitimate nature of other governments. In this view, international politics isn't a clash of competing interests; it is a morality play between good states -- America and its allies -- and bad states, or anyone who disagrees with us. During the Cold War, the problem was revolutionary communism led by the evil Soviet empire. After the Cold War, the United States blamed trouble on various "rogue" states such as Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea, and Serbia. These states were bad because they were dictatorships and had poor human rights records, revisionist aims, and, in most cases, an appetite for weapons of mass destruction. The obvious solution to the rogue-state problem, of course, was regime change: get rid of these very bad rulers and create governments that treat their own populations better and cooperate with the United States. 

But as the sorry results of regime change in Libya and Iraq suggest, getting rid of really awful leaders isn't an improvement if the result is anarchy or a weak, corrupt, and highly divisive regime. One might add Yemen and Somalia to the list as well, and that's where Afghanistan is likely to be once the international community stops propping it up. Creating effective governments in post-totalitarian societies turns out to be very, very hard, and especially after a violent overthrow. It is even harder when the society in question is divided and relatively poor, and the lack of any legitimate or effective authority creates power vacuums in which the worst sorts of extremism can flourish. What's the lesson for all you unrepentant regime-changers out there? Be careful what you wish for.

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