BOOK: Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
AUTHOR: Stephen Kinzer
PAGES: 322
DATE: 1/17/25
Having worked as an international development consultant for 11 years all over the world, and as someone who loves history, I chose the book to learn more about the US involvement in covertly overthrowing or invading countries for regime change. This book was VERY intersting.
What I learned from the book is the countries that the US enforced a regime change on, when it happened and the reasons why. In most cases, large US-owned businesses operating in that particular country sought protection by lobbying the US government to protect their interests and open markets. This was the common thread to enforce regime change on the countries listed below. In the case of Hawaii, Nicaragua, Honduras & Guatemala, surprisingly little effort was required to get the local president to step down or be killed by locals and ultimately replaced with one that was more conducive to US interests.
IMPERIAL – this is all about building markets & adding to the sphere of influence of the United Statesvz
Country Year US company desiring change
Hawaii 1893 US sugar plantation owners
Cuba 1898 US sugar plantation owners led to Spanish Americn war and the US also obtained Puerto Rico & Philippines.
Puerto Rico 1898
Philippines 1898 open markets for US goods
Nicaragua 1909 US logging & mining companies
Honduras 1911 US banana producers
The US government devoted enormous resources to overthrowing elected governments, but very little to ensuring that the new regimes were democratci or responsive to the needs of the people. Still, Americans tend to believe that their country is a source of good in the world, so there is some belief by the people that what their governmet did was correct. If the US has been more far-sighted, it might have found a way to embrace and influence reformers in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua & Honduras. Zelaya was one of the greatest statesman Nicaragua ever produced. If the US could have found a way to cooperate with him, it might have avoided the disasters that followed. For instance, Nicaragua competes with Haiti to lead the Western Hemisphere in rates of poverty, unemployment, infant mortality and deaths from curable diseases.
COVERT/COLD WAR – During this time, there was great cooperation between the CIA & the State Department because the Secretary of State was John Foster Dulles & the CIA director was his younger brother, Allen Dulles. The US devoted enormous resources to plot against elected governments, but very little to ensuring that the new regimes were democratic or responsive to the needs of the people. Except for Vietnam, each of the countries whose government was overthrown had something Americans wanted – either a valuable natural resource, a large consumer market, or a strategic location that would allow access to resources and markets elsewhere. Powerful businesses played just as great a role in pushing the US to intervene abroad during the Cold War ad they did during the first burst of American Imperialism.
Iran 1953 British Petroleum
Guatemala 1954 United Fruit/US banana producers
* Vietnam 1963 Anti-Communism faction of US government
Chile 1973 US based ITT – a US phone company
* The coup in South Vietnam was unlike the other three. It was staged in a country where the US was at war, rather than one where it faced a theoretical threat. The control of great resource was at stake. The operation in Vietnam was the only time the US helped overthrow a leader who was a friend rather than a perceived enemy.
INVASION – These all happened during times that most of us remember. I remember riding the bus to school in the sixth grade hearing about the Grenada invasion. Several of my classmates were in the Army that went to Panama. Even more people I know went to Afghanistan & Iraq.
Why did Americans support policies that brought suffering to people in foreign lands? There are two reasons that are so intertwined that they become one. The essential reason is that American control of faraway places came to be seen as vital to the material prosperity of the US. Additionally, there is a deep-seated belief of most Americans that their country is a force for good in the world while at the same time there is an absolute lack of interest the US shows in the opinions of the people whose land is seized. In most American-sponsored “regime change” operations have, in the end, weakened rather than strengthened American security.
Grenada 1983 Save US students/stop communism
Panama 1989 Anti-drug/gun smuggling/money laundering
Afghanistan 2001 terrorism
* Iraq 2003 WMD/President Bush wanted it
* George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq under the cover of WMD production, but in reality there were multiple factors involved. The first was Iran. When militant clerics seized power there after the Islamic revolution of 1979, they shook the world in ways no one could foresee. Their revolution helped provoke the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which drew the US into Afghanistan (supporting the locals to fight the Russians) and created the conditions under which Al Qaeda grew & thrived. It led to American leaders to begin searching for a new ally & proxy in the Muslim Middle East, which drew them to Iraq. This led Saddam Hussein to believe that he could get away with his old dream of seizing territory from Iran and later Kuwait. America’s decision to embrace him during his was against Iran was the first phase of a tortuous relationship between Washington and Baghdad that culminated in the American invasion of 2003.
Vietnam was the second place where Americans had traumatic experiences that led indirectly to the invasion of Iraq. In Vietnam, as in Iran, the US suffered a deep humiliation from which it never truly recovered. Bush and many of those arond him believed Americans were still suffering from “Vietnam Syndrome,” which they defined as a reluctance to use military force abroad and a nagging sense that the US had lost its power to shape world events. They saw Iraq as a place where they could win a quick, overwhelming victory that would erawe those doubts forever.
The following lessons will increase my prospect for success after prison:
1) This book was packed full of interesting historical information. I don’t know if it will help me directly after prison, but it was definitely educational. If nothing else, it will make me a better conversationalist on the countries listed above.
2) In the case of Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam & Chile, the coups “were what the US president wanted,” and all of the cabinet members, NSA & CIA directors lined up to support him. In all four cases, the US involvement played the decisive role in the regime’s fall. This tells me that when there is 100% will and leadership in the US government, with all of the agencies and services that support it, almost anything can happen. I wish the US president would have the same willpower as it relates to balancing the budget and paying down US debt. This would ensure US strength for decades to come.
3) Several of the original regime leaders were offered political alterntives first. After turning them down, the US took more aggressive action. It would have been better for the leaders (and less costly for the US government) to have taken the first offer. The same thing goes for me after prison – it may be better to take the first offer and try to work my way up the ladder through that framewrk as opposed to fighting the system and being punished more severely in the end for it.
