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Why Gun-Barrel Democracy Doesn’t Work
Over the past half century, the United States has repeatedly sent its military forces abroad in the name of democracy. Yet very few of the countries we have invaded have become democratic.

When it involves itself in the affairs of others, the United States likes to say that it is doing so in defense of freedom and democracy. That's what we said in Iraq, among other things, when we toppled Saddam Hussein. That was part (though not all) of our argument for going after the Taliban in Afghanistan. But it's also what we said in Vietnam in the 1960s, in Grenada in 1983, in Panama in 1989, and in numerous other interventions during the twentieth century.

In fact, presidents rarely fail to trot out "democracy" as a justification for their actions abroad. That's because it is popular with Americans, who like to feel they are on the side of the angels. But if it’s democracy we’re after, we are failing miserably.

Between World War II and the present, the United States intervened more than 35 times in developing countries around the world. But our research shows that in only one case—Colombia after the American decision in 1989 to engage in the war on drugs—did a full-fledged, stable democracy with limits on executive power, clear rules for the transition of power, universal adult suffrage, and competitive elections emerge within 10 years. That’s a success rate of less than 3 percent. ...