Removing Unfriendly Leaders

The immediate aftermath of a so-called decapitation strike — an attack that removes the leadership of a government — often looks like victory. A hostile leader is now either out of power or dead. Moral and legal questions aside — isn’t that a win?

Not quite. My colleague Amanda Taub, who writes The Interpreter newsletter, looks today at the perils of what are known as targeted strikes. They seem to be the new favorite tactic of the Trump administration. But a strategy that emerged from the world of counterterrorism doesn’t always work as planned when applied to nations and governments. — Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer

When targeting foreign leaders goes wrong

Over the past year, the Trump administration appears to have embraced a new foreign policy tactic: removing unfriendly leaders.

In January, President Trump sent U.S. troops to Caracas, where they captured the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, in an overnight raid.

The next month, the U.S. and Israel opened their war against Iran with airstrikes that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, along with other top officials.

Both acts were shocking enough that the tactic has since been deployed as a warning: One Trump official notified the Taliban this month that if they did not release American hostages held in Afghanistan they could face the same fate. The administration is also reportedly insisting that Cuba’s president step down (though people involved in the discussions say military force is unlikely to be involved).

But the actions in Venezuela and Iran led to different results. In Venezuela, removing Maduro seems to have paved the way for new leadership that has appeared more inclined to cooperate with the U.S. In Iran, Khamenei’s death seems to have, if anything, made his successors more determined to resist.

What accounts for the difference? Some of it is because of the specific circumstances in Venezuela and Iran. But it’s also worth looking more closely at the context surrounding decapitation strikes.

These sorts of strikes are a tactic often used in counterterrorism, where the goal isn’t to replace the leadership, but to destroy and dissipate a group. That makes them an awkward fit for states: There is no destroying and dissipating Venezuela or Iran. And so any attempt to remove the leadership needs to account for what’s going to come next.

Countries have deep benches

Even when used in counterterrorism, targeted strikes are often ineffective.

They can be useful against small cells that don’t have deep benches of replacements, according to Robert Pape, a political scientist and the author of “Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War.” Black September, the group that massacred Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, for example, was effectively dismantled through a campaign of assassinations and arrests.

Such strikes are less useful against larger, more established organizations, said Jenna Jordan, a political scientist and the author of the 2019 book “Leadership Decapitation: Strategic Targeting of Terrorist Organizations.” Groups with bureaucracies, roots in their local communities and ideologies that don’t depend on a particular charismatic leader (such as Hamas or ISIS) “are really hard to weaken with decapitation,” she said.

And decapitation “makes no sense with leaders of a country,” Pape said. National governments have established succession plans in place and plenty of people who can step in to fill the vacant roles.

The crucial question, therefore, is not whether an existing leader can be removed, but whether existing succession plans bring someone better to power — or if a coup or revolution can circumvent those existing plans.

The state collapse scenario

In Venezuela, the U.S. seems to have decided that the established succession plan was good enough: That is, in fact, how power transferred to Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. So far at least, she has looked willing to cooperate with the U.S., but there was no real regime change, experts say. Rodríguez is a longtime government insider who has kept the broader power structure of the government.

In Iran, however, where Israel has continued to engage in targeted strikes aimed at other top leaders, the politicians whom the U.S. originally envisioned working with have been killed, according to President Trump. The U.S. and Israel appear to have hoped that removing old figures would lead to a grass roots uprising that would sweep away the old regime.

But experts who study coups and revolutions say that was never likely. Whoever takes power would need to win the support of crucial elites, including within the security services, by convincing them that backing regime change is the lowest-risk option. That requires coordination and planning — not merely reacting to an airstrike.

So far, Iran’s succession process has brought to power hard-liners who are doubling down on war.

As that war continues, and more of Iran’s leadership is killed, some experts worry about the prospect of state collapse — that the government could effectively stop functioning, which is what happened in Libya in the wake of Muammar el-Qaddafi’s death. Those worries highlight another difference between terror groups and governments.

If a terror group collapses, it can simply cease to exist. But if a state collapses, it opens up a power vacuum. What ends up filling it could be more dangerous than what the targeted strikes removed in the first place.

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Coated in an orange-flavored dressing spiked with harissa and red wine vinegar, these roasted carrots make a tangy-sweet side dish next to a Passover brisket, roast chicken or any other main dish.