Why ineffectiveness is often baked-in to American intervention overseas

When it wants to promote democracy in other countries, the US has a number of options, ranging from foreign aid to economic sanctions to military intervention. But how do Americans feel about these different ways of intervening? In new survey research, Abel Escribà-Folch, Lala Muradova, and Toni Rodon find that Americans are more supportive of intervening in autocratic countries which do not hold elections, and are not US allies. But past experience, they write, also shows that intervening in countries that have these characteristics often does not lead to the growth of democracy.