What are the common traits of US backed regime change? [closed]

Question

Whenever there is a regime change in any part of the world, it's common for people to speculate about potential involvement by the United States, whether or not there's any direct evidence of such involvement. This raises the question: Is it possible to analyze a regime-change incident systematically to determine whether the U.S. played a role?

One way to approach this is by identifying common characteristics of past U.S.-backed regime changes and comparing them to more recent incidents. "Backing" in this context refers to actions like aiding in planning and executing the change, supplying intelligence, helping with organization, creating mass public opinion, and running propaganda in favor of the revolution, among other things.

For instance, the recent regime change in Bangladesh has been speculated to be U.S.-backed. Some believe that the U.S. might have used Pakistani intelligence agencies and the Australian High Commission to influence the situation.

What are the common traits of U.S.-backed regime changes, and can these traits be used as a framework to analyze and compare with recent events?

Answer 1

Frame challenge: "US backed" is extremely vague, i.e. covers a large range of activities.

Nowadays the US [State Department] will verbally 'back up' any regime that transitions to democracy (e.g. from a military coup). And the Western MSM press will typically applaud a democratic transition as well.

The actual degree of "backup" or rather support that the transition received can vary widely though. From the more concrete support that they e.g. gave the Serbian opposition to Milosevic to nothing more than words.

As for backing up transitions to non-democratic forms, those were surely more common during the [previous] Cold War, when some degree of anti-communism was generally enough for a coup to receive some level of approval, as long as those replaced were perceived to be worse on that angle. Or even just in orientation towards some settlement that the US approved, e.g. improved relations between some country and Israel.

Even then/so, backing up dictators abroad was not without some domestic blowback, sometimes even at Congressional level (e.g. 'Kennedy Amendment' of 1976), i.e. it was fodder for potential 'political football'.

Islamists have sometimes replaced communists as the scarecrow in some contexts nowadays, at least in some part of the world, for US policy decision making.

Also, focusing on support just on the initial takeover event may or may not be too myopic, as aid sometimes is spread over time.

As you mentioned Bangladesh (in new edits)... conversely, lack of much financial support tends to indicate not much backing. E.g. when general Ershad visited the US (in 1983) soon after his (1982) coup, the CIA advised the presidency (in a now declassified, but then secret memo) that "Ershad tends to overestimate the importance of Bangladesh to the United States" and "Ultimately, Bangladesh plays a relatively minor role in US policy", and that Ershad was visiting to seek more aid & private investments, and so boost his domestic standing, particularly in the eyes of the military. It's not hard to read between the lines that the CIA was thus advising "don't spend much on him", which they also phrase as that might be grating India's "sphere of influence" (my term): "Overcommitment of US military or political support to Bangladesh, however, could irritate New Delhi, in our view, and would be detrimental to US relations with India, a far more strategic South Asian country to overall US interests."

And since you've added

Backing means - aiding in planning and executing the change - designing a plan, supplying with intelligence, helping them organize, running propaganda in favor of the revolution, etc.

Well, if there's evidence of that ... there's evidence of backing, I'm not sure what one might add on this angle.

Answer 2

The world of international politics is anarchic and teleological. When there is the potential for regime change in a given state, every powerful nation (including the US) will be thinking about its own national interests, and angling to support the side of the conflict which serves that best.

We talk about a regime change being backed by a foreign state when the foreign state supplies training, intelligence, weapons, or other tactical support to the rebellious or opposition group. This may be done openly or surreptitiously, depending on international and domestic political contexts, and sometimes rises to the level of a proxy war between several powerful states. One might think of the truly odd situation in Syria, where the Assad regime (in its typically brutal manner) was fighting against several distinct popular uprisings and the expansion of ISIS, and foreign states had to carefully navigate whom they attacked and whom they supported, so as not to:

1. accidentally appear to support politically undesirable groups, or…
2. accidentally come into direct conflict with each other, instead of proxy conflict

The point here is that the US and every powerful nation are regularly 'backing' regimes or their oppositions across the wide range of less powerful, less developed nations. Sometimes this backing is minor and ineffectual; sometimes it's subtle and manipulative; sometimes it's open and aggressive. If regime-change ends up with a government aligned with the US, it was likely backed by the US; if not, it was likely backed by another power, with the US supporting the old regime.

Answer 3

If you see a concerted approval in the Anglosphere media regarding that regime change, then you may assume that US is behind it.

The magnitude of US involvement in the world politics is such that it is unlikely that US would be uninvolved in a regime change that is viewed as positive. They're involved pretty much everywhere.

If you see conflicting opinions about a regime change in the press, that's a "no". US may still eventually find a way to tame such regime change, but it could happen in spite of US backing and not due to it. Regime changes are sufficiently dangerous affairs that sides would only praise if these are "their own".