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Interventionism (politics)

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An illustration of William of Orange of the Dutch Republic landing at Brixham to depose James II of England during the Glorious Revolution in 1688.

Interventionism, in international politics, is the interference of a state or group of states into the domestic affairs of another state for the purposes of coercing that state to do something or refrain from doing something.[1] The intervention can be conducted through military force or economic coercion. A different term, economic interventionism, refers to government interventions into markets at home.[2]

Military intervention, which is a common element of interventionism, has been defined by Martha Finnemore in the context of international relations as "the deployment of military personnel across recognized boundaries for the purpose of determining the political authority structure in the target state". Interventions may be solely focused on altering political authority structures, or may be conducted for humanitarian purposes, or for debt collection.[3]

Interventionism has played a major role in the foreign policies of Western powers, particularly during and after the Victorian era. The New Imperialism era saw numerous interventions by Western nations in the Global South, including the Banana Wars. Modern interventionism grew out of Cold War policies, where the United States and the Soviet Union intervened in nations around the world to counter any influence held there by the other nation.[4] Historians have noted that interventionism has always been a contentious political issue in the public opinion of countries which engaged in interventions.[5]

According to a dataset by Alexander Downes, 120 leaders were removed through foreign-imposed regime change between 1816 and 2011.[6] A 2016 study by Carnegie Mellon University political scientist Dov Haim Levin (who now teaches at the University of Hong Kong) found that the United States intervened in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000, with the majority of those being through covert, rather than overt, actions.[7][8] Multilateral interventions that include territorial governance by foreign institutions also include cases like East Timor and Kosovo, and have been proposed (but were rejected) for the Palestinian territories.[9] A 2021 review of the existing literature found that foreign interventions since World War II tend to overwhelmingly fail in achieving their purported objectives.[10]

Foreign-imposed regime change

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See also: Regime change § Foreign-imposed regime change, and Foreign electoral intervention

Studies by Alexander Downes, Lindsey O'Rourke, and Jonathan Monten indicate that foreign-imposed regime change seldom reduces the likelihood of civil war, violent removal of the newly imposed leader,[6] and the probability of conflict between the intervening state and its adversaries,[11] and does not increase the likelihood of democratization unless regime change comes with pro-democratic institutional changes in countries with favorable conditions for democracy.[12] Downes argues:[6]

The strategic impulse to forcibly oust antagonistic or non-compliant regimes overlooks two key facts. First, the act of overthrowing a foreign government sometimes causes its military to disintegrate, sending thousands of armed men into the countryside where they often wage an insurgency against the intervener. Second, externally-imposed leaders face a domestic audience in addition to an external one, and the two typically want different things. These divergent preferences place imposed leaders in a quandary: taking actions that please one invariably alienates the other. Regime change thus drives a wedge between external patrons and their domestic protégés or between protégés and their people.

Research by Nigel Lo, Barry Hashimoto, and Dan Reiter has contrasting findings, as they find that interstate "peace following wars last longer when the war ends in foreign-imposed regime change".[13] However, research by Reiter and Goran Peic finds that foreign-imposed regime change can raise the probability of civil war.[14]

By country

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China

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This section is an excerpt from Foreign interventions by China.[edit]
The People's Republic of China has intervened in foreign countries on numerous occasions. Traditionally, official stances by China included a non-intervention approach, though as it became an emerging power, it has utilized intervention tactics.[15]

Cuba

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This section is an excerpt from Foreign interventions by Cuba.[edit]
The small island nation of Cuba had impacts throughout the world

Cuba intervened into numerous conflicts during the Cold War. The country sent medical and military aid into foreign countries to aid Socialist governments and rebel groups. These interventionist policies were controversial and resulted in isolation from many countries.[16] Due to the ongoing Cold War, Cuba attempted make allies across Latin America and Africa. Cuba believed it had more freedom to intervene in Africa as the U.S. was more concerned about Latin America.[17] Still, the US was strongly opposed to Cuban involvement in Africa and continued Cuban intervention was a major source of tension.[18] Cuban intervention was often confidential and all Cuban doctors and soldiers were forced to keep their location confidential.[19]

In Latin America, Cuba supported numerous rebel movements, including in Nicaragua, and in Bolivia where Che Guevara attempted to foment an insurgency. In 1959, Cuba unsuccessfully invaded Panama and the Dominican Republic. Within Africa, Cuba supported numerous independence movements, including in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique. Che Guevara also went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire) to support the Simba rebellion. Cuba's largest foreign interventions were in Angola in support of the MPLA and in Ethiopia in support of Mengistu Haile Mariam during the Ogaden War.[18] Cuba also intervened militarily in the Arab world including in Yemen, Algeria, Iraq,[20] and in support of Syria during the October 1973 War. They also supported the People's Revolutionary Government during the United States invasion of Grenada. While most Cuban military interventions were Soviet-backed, Cuba often worked independently and at times even supported opposing sides.[18] General Leopoldo Cintra Frías, who served in both Angola and Ethiopia, stated, "The Soviets were never able to control us although I think that was their intention on more than one occasion."[20]

Cuban foreign policy was motivated by both idealism and realpolitik.[17] It publicly justified its interventions into foreign conflicts for a number of reasons; to spread their revolutionary ideas, aid "liberation movements" fighting for independence,[17] and to protect the territorial sovereignty of allied nations. Cuban leader Fidel Castro stated: "Our Revolution is not a revolution of millionaires. Instead, it is one carried out by the poor, and is one which dreams of ensuring the well-being not only of our own poor, but rather of all the poor in this world. And that is why we talk of internationalism."[21] Cuba was the only economically lesser developed nation with extensive military intervention in Africa.[18] Cuba was a strong supporter of the Organization for African Unity's emphasis on border protection and African independence.[18]

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and facing the economic difficulties during the Special Period, Cuba continued to maintain a presence in Africa, including the service of many doctors.[18] Cuban medical internationalism was a prominent feature of their interventions alongside military aspects. Medical internationalism consisted of four prevailing approaches: emergency response medical teams sent overseas; establishment abroad of public health systems for providing free health care for local residents; taking in foreign patients to Cuba for free treatment; and providing medical training for foreigners, to Cuba and overseas.[22] All Cuban doctors overseas were volunteers.[19]

Egypt

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Egypt has intervened in Libya.

Ethiopia

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Ethiopia has intervened in Somalia.

France

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See also: List of wars involving France

France has intervened in Libya and in West Africa.

India

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India has intervened in Sri Lanka.

Indonesia

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Indonesia has intervened in East Timor.

Iran

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Iran has intervened in Iraq and in Syria.

Israel

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See also: Israeli-occupied territories, Iran–Israel war, and Israel and the Syrian civil war

Nigeria

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Nigeria has shown the will to intervene in the affairs of other sub Saharan African countries since independence. It is said that one of the reasons Yakubu Gowon was removed from office had been the squandering of Nigeria's resources in such far-away lands as Grenada and Guyana, with no returns, economic or political for Nigeria. The philosophy of subsequent military governments in Nigeria was that in an increasingly interdependent world, a country cannot be an island.[23]

Russia

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See also: Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war and Russian-occupied territories
This section is an excerpt from Cyberwarfare by Russia.[edit]
Pro-Russian bot farm in Ukraine, 2022
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Cyberwarfare by Russia comprises denial-of-service campaigns, hacking operations, disinformation programs, and state-directed online repression, including participation of state-sponsored teams in political blogs, internet surveillance using SORM technology, and other active measures, executed by Russian security and intelligence agencies since the 1990s to advance Kremlin geopolitical objectives.[24][25]

Russian doctrine frames these operations within an informatsionnoye protivoborstvo (IPb), or information confrontation, approach that fuses technical network actions with psychological measures.[26] Units of the GRU, FSB, and SVR oversee hacker collectives such as APT28, APT29, Sandworm, Turla, and Star Blizzard that target governments, infrastructure, and civil society across Europe, North America, and Asia.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]

Prominent operations include the 2007 distributed denial-of-service attacks on Estonia,[38] cyber strikes that accompanied the 2008 war with Georgia,[39] sustained intrusions into Ukrainian elections and power grids,[40][41] and the 2017 NotPetya malware campaign that caused global financial losses, while the campaigns also targeted democratic contests in the United States, Germany, and across the European Union and sustained covert influence networks such as Voice of Europe.[31][32][42][43][44]

International responses range from sanctions and coordinated attribution statements to the creation of NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn[45] and joint action following the Viasat attack during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.[46][47][31]

Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia has led interventions in Bahrain and in Yemen.

Soviet Union

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This section is an excerpt from Foreign interventions by the Soviet Union.[edit]
Eastern Bloc
Over the course of its history, the Soviet Union intervened in foreign countries on numerous occasions.

Turkey

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Turkey has intervened in Cyprus, in Libya and in Syria.

United Arab Emirates

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The UAE has intervened in Sudan and in Yemen.

United States

[edit]
This section is an excerpt from Foreign interventions by the United States.[edit]
U.S. Marines raise the U.S. flag over Veracruz, Mexico during the Banana Wars
History of the United States
expansion and influence
Colonialism
Militarism
Foreign policy
Concepts

The United States has been involved in hundreds of interventions in foreign countries throughout its history, engaging in nearly 400 military interventions between 1776 and 2023, with half of these operations occurring since 1950 and over 25% occurring in the post-Cold War period.[48] Common objectives of U.S. foreign interventions have revolved around economic opportunity, protection of U.S. citizens and diplomats, territorial expansion, counterterrorism, fomenting regime change and nation-building, promoting democracy and enforcing international law.[48]

There have been two dominant ideologies in the United States about foreign policy—interventionism, which encourages military and political intervention in the affairs of foreign countries—and isolationism, which discourages these.[49]

The 19th century formed the roots of United States foreign interventionism, which at the time was largely driven by economic opportunities in the Pacific and Spanish-held Latin America along with the Monroe Doctrine, which saw the U.S. seek a policy to resist European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. The 20th century saw the U.S. intervene in two world wars in which American forces fought alongside their allies in international campaigns against Imperial Japan, Imperial and Nazi Germany, and their respective allies. The aftermath of World War II resulted in a foreign policy of containment aimed at preventing the spread of world communism. The ensuing Cold War resulted in the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, and Reagan Doctrines, all of which saw the U.S. engage in espionage, regime change, proxy wars, and other clandestine activity internationally against affiliates and puppet regimes of the Soviet Union.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's sole superpower and, with this, maintained interventionist policies in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Bush Administration launched the "war on terror" in which the U.S. waged international counterterrorism campaigns against various extremist groups—such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State—in various countries. The Bush Doctrine of preemptive war saw the U.S. invade Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. In addition, the U.S. expanded its military presence in Africa and Asia via status of forces agreements and a revamped policy of foreign internal defense. The Obama administration's 2012 "Pivot to East Asia" strategy sought to refocus U.S. geopolitical efforts from counter-insurgencies in the Middle East to improving American diplomatic influence and military presence in East Asia. The "Pivot to Asia" fomented a policy shift towards countering China's rising influence and perceived expansionism in the South China Sea—a trajectory continued by the Trump (2017–2021, 2025–present) and Biden administrations under the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy.

The United States Navy serves as a key element of United States global power projection and its ability to conduct foreign interventions. As a blue-water navy, it has been involved in anti-piracy activity in international and foreign territory throughout its history, from the Barbary Wars to combating modern piracy off the coast of Somalia and other regions.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Lingelbach, W. E. (1900). "The Doctrine and Practice of Intervention in Europe". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 16: 1–32. ISSN 0002-7162. JSTOR 1009439.
  2. ^ "Interventionism". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  3. ^ Finnemore, Martha (2004). The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force. Cornell University Press. pp. 9–10. ISBN 978-81-7049-205-4.
  4. ^ Rabe, Stephen G. (2005). U.S. Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0807856390.
  5. ^ Kinzer, Stephen (2017). The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-1627792165.
  6. ^ a b c Downes, Alexander B. (2021). Catastrophic Success: Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Goes Wrong. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-5017-6115-7.
  7. ^ Levin, Dov H. (June 2016). "When the Great Power Gets a Vote: The Effects of Great Power Electoral Interventions on Election Results". International Studies Quarterly. 60 (2): 189–202. doi:10.1093/isq/sqv016.
  8. ^ Agrawal, Nina (21 December 2016). "The U.S. is no stranger to interfering in the elections of other countries". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
  9. ^ Pugh, Jeffrey D. (2012-11-01). "Whose Brother's Keeper? International Trusteeship and the Search for Peace in the Palestinian Territories". International Studies Perspectives. 13 (4): 321–343. doi:10.1111/j.1528-3585.2012.00483.x. ISSN 1528-3577.
  10. ^ Malis, Matt; Querubin, Pablo; Satyanath, Shanker (2021). "Persistent failure? International interventions since World War II". The Handbook of Historical Economics: 641–673. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-815874-6.00038-1. ISBN 9780128158746. S2CID 236697008.
  11. ^ Downes, Alexander B.; O'Rourke, Lindsey A. (2016). "You Can't Always Get What You Want: Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Seldom Improves Interstate Relations". International Security. 41 (2): 43–89. doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00256. ISSN 0162-2889. S2CID 52994000.
  12. ^ Downes, Alexander B.; Monten, Jonathan (2013). "Forced to Be Free? Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Rarely Leads to Democratization". International Security. 37 (4): 90–131. doi:10.1162/ISEC_a_00117. ISSN 0162-2889. JSTOR 24480621. S2CID 3640183.
  13. ^ Lo, Nigel; Hashimoto, Barry; Reiter, Dan (2008). "Ensuring Peace: Foreign-Imposed Regime Change and Postwar Peace Duration, 1914–2001". International Organization. 62 (4): 717–736. doi:10.1017/S0020818308080259. ISSN 1531-5088. S2CID 154513807.
  14. ^ Peic, Goran; Reiter, Dan (2011). "Foreign-Imposed Regime Change, State Power and Civil War Onset, 1920–2004". British Journal of Political Science. 41 (3): 453–475. doi:10.1017/S0007123410000426. ISSN 1469-2112. S2CID 154222973.
  15. ^ Lawson, George; Tardelli, Luca (December 2013). "The past, present, and future of intervention". Review of International Studies. 39 (5): 1233–1253. doi:10.1017/S0260210513000247. S2CID 145394195.
  16. ^ Domínguez, Jorge (1989). To Make a World Safe for Revolution: Cuba's Foreign Policy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 114–120, 168–169. ISBN 978-0674893252.
  17. ^ a b c "Cosmopod: Cuba in Africa with Piero Gleijeses on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 2023-05-08.
  18. ^ a b c d e f Pereira, Analúcia Danilevicz (2017-01-11). "A POLÍTICA AFRICANA DE CUBA: IDEALISMO OU PRAGMATISMO?". Revista Brasileira de Estudos Africanos. 1 (2): 113. doi:10.22456/2448-3923.68321. hdl:10183/225354. ISSN 2448-3923.
  19. ^ a b Gleijeses, Piero (2002). Conflicting missions : Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-6162-6. OCLC 56356648.
  20. ^ a b Scheina (2003). Latin America's Wars Volume II: The Age of the Professional Soldier, 1900-2001. pp. 1003–1035.
  21. ^ Yaffe, Helen (2020). "Chapter 6: Cuban Medical Internationalism". We Are Cuba!. Yale University Press. pp. 152–153. ISBN 9780300230031.
  22. ^ Yaffe, Helen (2020). "Chapter 6: Cuban Medical Internationalism". We Are Cuba!. Yale University Press. pp. 152–154.
  23. ^ "Interventionism". LitCaf. 2021-12-10. Archived from the original on 2022-10-12. Retrieved 2022-10-12.
  24. ^ Kantchev, Georgi; Strobel, Warren P. (2 January 2021). "How Russia's 'Info Warrior' Hackers Let Kremlin Play Geopolitics on the Cheap". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 8 January 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  25. ^ State control over the internet Archived 22 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine, a talk show by Yevgenia Albats at the Echo of Moscow, 22 January 2006; interview with Andrei Soldatov and others
  26. ^ Russia Military Power: Building a Military to Support Great Power Aspirations (PDF) (Report). Defense Intelligence Agency. 2017. pp. 37–39. Retrieved 10 October 2025.
  27. ^ "UK enforces new sanctions against Russia for cyber attack on German parliament". UK Government. 22 October 2020.
  28. ^ "Microsoft says Russian state-sponsored hackers accessed emails of senior leadership". Reuters. 19 January 2024.
  29. ^ "Microsoft actions following attack by nation-state actor Midnight Blizzard". Microsoft Security Response Center. 19 January 2024.
  30. ^ "Update on Microsoft actions following attack by Midnight Blizzard". Microsoft Security Response Center. 8 March 2024.
  31. ^ a b c "Statement from the Press Secretary". whitehouse.gov. 15 February 2018. In June 2017, the Russian military launched the most destructive and costly cyber-attack in history.
  32. ^ a b "Six Russian GRU Officers Charged in Connection with Worldwide Deployment of Destructive Malware and Other Disruptive Actions" (Press release). U.S. Department of Justice. 19 October 2020.
  33. ^ "Russia's FSB targets foreign embassies in Moscow in cyber espionage campaign, Microsoft says". Reuters. 31 July 2025.
  34. ^ "UK exposes attempted Russian cyber interference in politics and democratic processes". UK Government. 7 December 2023.
  35. ^ "US and UK sanction members of Russia's FSB for cyber campaign". U.S. Department of the Treasury. 7 December 2023.
  36. ^ "Justice Department Disrupts Russian Intelligence Spear-Phishing Efforts" (Press release). U.S. Department of Justice. 3 October 2024.
  37. ^ "Protecting democratic institutions from cyber threats". Microsoft On the Issues. 3 October 2024.
  38. ^ McGuinness, Damien (27 April 2017). "How a cyber attack transformed Estonia". BBC News. Archived from the original on 21 February 2018.
  39. ^ Hart, Kim (14 August 2008). "Longtime Battle Lines Are Recast In Russia and Georgia's Cyberwar". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 13 March 2018.
  40. ^ Clayton, Mark (17 June 2014). "Ukraine election narrowly avoided 'wanton destruction' from hackers". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 13 October 2020. Retrieved 16 August 2017.
  41. ^ "U.S. government concludes cyber attack caused Ukraine power outage". Reuters. 25 February 2016. Archived from the original on 21 April 2016. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
  42. ^ Ignatius, David (18 January 2017). "Russia's radical new strategy for information warfare". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 23 March 2017. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  43. ^ Vasco Cotovio (24 September 2021). "Russia accused of 'Ghostwriter' cyberattacks ahead of German election". CNN. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  44. ^ Belton, Catherine; Mekhennet, Souad (3 June 2024). 'Russia co-opts far-right politicians in Europe with cash, officials say'. The Washington Post. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
  45. ^ "NATO opens new centre of excellence on cyber defence". NATO. 14 May 2008.
  46. ^ "Russian cyber operations against Ukraine: Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union". Council of the European Union. 10 May 2022.
  47. ^ "US Government Attributes Cyberattacks on SATCOM Networks to Russian State-Sponsored Actors". CISA. 10 May 2022.
  48. ^ a b Kushi, Sidita; Toft, Monica Duffy (2022). "Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A New Dataset on US Military Interventions, 1776–2019". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 67 (4): 752–779. doi:10.1177/00220027221117546. ISSN 0022-0027. S2CID 251479665.
  49. ^ Wertheim, "Tomorrow The World," 2020, p4.

Further reading

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  • Kupchan, Charles A. Isolationism: A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself from the World (Oxford University Press, 2020).
  • Lee, Melissa M. 2020. Crippling Leviathan: How Foreign Subversion Weakens the State. Princeton University Press.
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