Moldova, Imperialism and Regime Change

Introduction

This entry focuses on what is, arguably, an inadequately studied historico-political phenomenon – the 2009 US-backed regime change in Moldova – and it does so, at least in part, by placing said phenomenon within the broader contexts of Washington’s foreign policy record, including its myriad campaigns around the world (successful or otherwise) to overturn foreign governments, its seemingly increasingly tense relations with Moscow during the post-Cold War period in general, and in the East European geopolitical space in particular.

The analysis presented here hinges to a considerable extent on the idea that the pursuit of “regime change” is – whether its executors openly acknowledge this or not – a key element of US foreign policy. Here, I shall demonstrate that, while certainly less well-known and openly violent than the post-Cold War regime change campaigns that it “successfully” carried out in, say, Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003, Washington – in 2009, and...