Interventionism, in international politics, is the interference of a state or group of states into the domestic affairs of another state for the purposes ofcoercing that state to do something or refrain from doing something.[1] The intervention can be conducted throughmilitary force oreconomic 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 byMartha Finnemore in the context ofinternational 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] The 1933Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States provides that "no state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another."[4] TheGeneral Assembly of the United Nations has condemned (with one abstaining and no dissenting vote) "armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements."[5]
Although the prohibition against intervention represents an overwhelming consensus of states, there have been many excuses and exceptions constructed to Article 2(4) ofUN Charter that the basic principle against intervention is sometimes whittled down in practice. For example, there is a general notion that intervention to send armed forces into a foreign state in order to support a foreign government already in power when the foreign government requires outside assistance is allowed.
Interventionism has played a major role in the foreign policies of Western powers, particularly during and after theVictorian era. TheNew Imperialism era saw numerous interventions by Western nations in theGlobal South, including theBanana Wars. Modern interventionism grew out ofCold War policies, where theUnited States and theSoviet Union intervened in nations around the world to counter any influence held there by the other nation.[6] Historians have noted that interventionism has always been a contentious political issue in the public opinion of countries which engaged in interventions.[7]
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,[8] and the probability of conflict between the intervening state and its adversaries,[9] and does not increase the likelihood ofdemocratization unless regime change comes with pro-democratic institutional changes in countries with favorable conditions for democracy.[10] Downes argues:[8]
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, andDan Reiter has contrasting findings, as they find that interstate "peace following wars last longer when the war ends in foreign-imposed regime change".[11] However, research by Reiter and Goran Peic finds that foreign-imposed regime change can raise the probability of civil war.[12]
According to a dataset by Alexander Downes, 120 leaders were removed through foreign-imposed regime change between 1816 and 2011.[8] A 2016 study byCarnegie Mellon University political scientist Dov Haim Levin (who now teaches at theUniversity 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.[13][14] Multilateral interventions that include territorial governance by foreign institutions also include cases likeEast Timor andKosovo, and have been proposed (but were rejected) for thePalestinian territories.[15] A 2021 review of the existing literature found that foreign interventions since World War II tend to overwhelmingly fail in achieving their purported objectives.[16]
The United States has intervenedin Korea. Additionally, the legal justification of collective self-defense at the invitation of the government of South Vietnam figured importantly in official statements supporting the intervention of the United States in theVietnam War.
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Cuba intervened into numerous conflicts during theCold 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.[18] 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.[19] Still, the US was strongly opposed to Cuban involvement in Africa and continued Cuban intervention was a major source of tension.[20] Cuban intervention was often confidential and all Cuban doctors and soldiers were forced to keep their location confidential.[21]
In Latin America, Cuba supported numerous rebel movements, including inNicaragua, and inBolivia whereChe Guevara attempted to foment aninsurgency. In 1959, Cuba unsuccessfully invadedPanama and theDominican Republic. Within Africa, Cuba supported numerous independence movements, including inAngola,Guinea-Bissau, andMozambique. Che Guevara also went to theDemocratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire) to support theSimba rebellion. Cuba's largest foreign interventions were in Angola in support of theMPLA and inEthiopia in support ofMengistu Haile Mariam during theOgaden War.[20] Cuba also intervened militarily in the Arab world including inYemen,Algeria,Iraq,[22] and in support ofSyria during theOctober 1973 War. They also supported thePeople's Revolutionary Government during theUnited States invasion of Grenada. While most Cuban military interventions were Soviet-backed, Cuba often worked independently and at times even supported opposing sides.[20] GeneralLeopoldo 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."[22]
Cuban foreign policy was motivated by both idealism andrealpolitik.[19] It publicly justified its interventions into foreign conflicts for a number of reasons; to spread their revolutionary ideas, aid "liberation movements" fighting for independence,[19] and to protect the territorial sovereignty of allied nations. Cuban leaderFidel 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."[23] Cuba was the only economically lesser developed nation with extensive military intervention in Africa.[20] Cuba was a strong supporter of theOrganization for African Unity's emphasis on border protection and African independence.[20]
Following thedissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and facing the economic difficulties during theSpecial Period, Cuba continued to maintain a presence in Africa, including the service of many doctors.[20]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.[24] All Cuban doctors overseas were volunteers.[21]Egypt has intervenedin Libya.
Ethiopia has intervenedin Somalia.
France has intervenedin Libya andin West Africa.
India has intervenedin Sri Lanka.
Indonesia has intervenedin East Timor.
Iran has intervenedin Iraq andin Syria.
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 reasonsYakubu 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.[25]
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Cyberwarfare by Russia comprisesdenial-of-service campaigns,hacking operations,disinformation programs, and state-directed onlinerepression, includingparticipation of state-sponsored teams in political blogs, internetsurveillance usingSORM technology, and otheractive measures, executed by Russian security and intelligence agencies since the 1990s to advance Kremlin geopolitical objectives.[26][27]
Russian doctrine frames these operations within aninformatsionnoye protivoborstvo (IPb), or information confrontation, approach that fuses technical network actions with psychological measures.[28] Units of theGRU,FSB, andSVR oversee hacker collectives such asAPT28,APT29,Sandworm,Turla, and Star Blizzard that target governments, infrastructure, and civil society across Europe, North America, and Asia.[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]
Prominent operations include the 2007 distributed denial-of-service attacks on Estonia,[40] cyber strikes that accompanied the 2008 war with Georgia,[41] sustained intrusions into Ukrainian elections and power grids,[42][43] and the 2017NotPetya 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 asVoice of Europe.[33][34][44][45][46]
International responses range from sanctions and coordinated attribution statements to the creation ofNATO's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn[47] and joint action following theViasat attack during the2022 invasion of Ukraine.[48][49][33]Saudi Arabia has led interventionsin Bahrain andin Yemen.
Turkey has intervenedin Cyprus,in Libya andin Syria.
The UAE has intervenedin Sudan andin Yemen.
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The United States has been involved in hundreds of interventions in foreign countries throughout itshistory, 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.[50] Common objectives of U.S. foreign interventions have revolved around economic opportunity, protection of U.S. citizens and diplomats,territorial expansion,counterterrorism, fomentingregime change andnation-building, attackingCommunism and enforcinginternational law.[50]
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—andisolationism, which discourages these.[51]
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 theMonroe Doctrine, which saw the U.S. seek a policy to resistEuropean colonialism in theWestern Hemisphere. The 20th century saw the U.S. intervene in twoworld wars in which American forces fought alongside their allies in international campaigns againstImperial Japan,Imperial andNazi Germany, and their respective allies. Theaftermath of World War II resulted in a foreign policy ofcontainment aimed at preventing the spread ofworld communism. The ensuingCold War resulted in theTruman,Eisenhower,Kennedy,Carter, andReagan Doctrines, all of which saw the U.S. engage inespionage,regime change,proxy wars, and otherclandestine activity internationally against affiliates and puppet regimes of theSoviet Union.
After the Soviet Unioncollapsed in 1991, the U.S. emerged as the world's solesuperpower and, with this, maintained interventionist policies in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Following theSeptember 11 attacks in 2001, theBush Administration launched the "war on terror" in which the U.S. waged internationalcounterterrorism campaigns against various extremist groups—such asal-Qaeda and theIslamic State—in various countries. TheBush Doctrine ofpreemptive war saw the U.S.invade Afghanistan in 2001 andIraq in 2003. In addition, the U.S. expanded its military presence in Africa and Asia viastatus of forces agreements and a revamped policy offoreign internal defense. TheObama 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 inEast Asia. The "Pivot to Asia" fomented a policy shift towards countering China's rising influence and perceived expansionism in theSouth China Sea—a trajectory continued by theTrump (2017–2021, 2025–present) andBiden administrations under theFree and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy.
TheUnited States Navy serves as a key element of United States globalpower projection and its ability to conduct foreign interventions. As ablue-water navy, it has been involved in anti-piracy activity ininternational and foreign territory throughout its history, from theBarbary Wars tocombating modernpiracy off the coast of Somalia and other regions.In June 2017, the Russian military launched the most destructive and costly cyber-attack in history.
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