How the US controls regimes strategically the world over

For decades, the US has reshaped govts to serve its strategic interests. India must understand these patterns to protect its sovereignty

- SRINATH SRIDHARAN

For much of the postwar era, the United States has cloaked its foreign policy in the rhetoric of liberty, democracy, and human rights.

Yet. the historical record points to something more of less flattering: a practice of regime change, pursued whenever a government's orientation diverged from Washington's strategic or economic preferences.

From the overthrow of Iran's Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 to the ousting of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, from the invasion of Iraq to the dismemberment of Libya, the pattern is unmistakable. The US has been far from being the champion of democracy.

This is not a defence of authoritarian regimes or despotic rulers. The consequences of the US interventions have often been destabilising and insensitive to the local population. The coup in Tehran sowed the seeds for the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The removal of Saddam Hussein fractured Iraq, unleashing sectarian violence and giving rise to the Islamic State. Libya, once a functioning state, was reduced to an arena of militias and external patrons. Venezuela remains trapped in a spiral of sanctions and polarisation.

Even where Washington has not deployed troops, its repertoire has included covert funding of opposition groups, the weaponisation of media, crippling sanctions, and the legitimisation of coups with highminded rhetoric. The inconsistency is glaring.

The scale of American interventions shows that this is no aberration. Between 1991 and 2022 alone, the US mounted over 250 military interventions worldwide, many aimed at reshaping political orders.