Here are some case studies of failed aggressive military interventions:
1. In 1953, US and UK toppled down Iran’s democratically elected leader Mossad and replaced him with Shah Reza Pahlavi. The result? Unrest culminating in 1979 revolution when the Shah was replaced with a regime that’s hostile to US to this day
In 1956, France, UK, and Israel colluded to oust Egypt’s leader Jamal Abdul Nasser – they’re busted, and was forced by US and Soviet Union to withdraw. This sends narrative that UK and France isn’t a true power anymore.
2. Israel invaded Lebanon, until 2000 when they withdraw? The result? Hezbollah pops out.
3. US intervened to topple Taliban in Afghanistan. It was 15 years and 1 trillion US$ ago and no fruitful result came.
US intervened to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq – It results in insurgencies, increased Iran influence in Iraq, and ISIS
There’s tosses others.
Why does all that happens?
1. Toppling down authoritarian regimes put other authoritarian regimes on alert, and they know if one effort is successful, it can be used as a precedence to repeat the intervention somewhere else. This is why Iran worked so hard so that US intervention in Iraq isn’t successful, because Iran knows US will target them next if Iraq proved to be stable after its intervention.
2. Defeating a country is easy, the hard part is what’s *after* it:
A. The newly installed government also has its own interest for political survival, one that isn’t in line with the interest of intervening countries. For example, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan leader installed by US doesn’t do any effort to crackdown corruption in his country because that would case his power to decline.
B. Locals (and the losers of the war) simply don’t like foreigners telling them what to do, no matter how benevolent they are. The narrative of neo-imperialism is just so strong that people can be driven to do some unpleasant stuffs, like, say, joining ISIS.
These two problems is further fueled by western ignorance that “the way of the west” *must* be “the way of the world”.