A little more than 80 years ago, a group of young military officers joined with Venezuela’s main opposition party to overthrow the country’s ruling dictator. The man who took power, Rómulo Betancourt, became known as the father of Venezuelan democracy. He quickly set to work expanding suffrage, carrying out social and economic reforms, securing oil revenue, and settling European refugees who had fled World War II.Betancourt inherited a weak state, reliant on oil revenue, that had nominal institutions and limited experience with democracy. He stacked the government with partisans; other political parties cried foul; and the military got nervous. A coup toppled his government in 1948, and democracy would not reemerge in Venezuela for another decade. By then Betancourt had learned his lesson: He shared power with other major parties, a move that allowed democracy to take root and endure for decades, until its erosion and then collapse under Hugo Chávez after 1999.Today there is again talk of regime change in Venezuela. The country’s popular opposition leader, the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, calls President Nicolás Maduro’s rule illegitimate and promises to return the country to democracy. The Trump administration seems inclined to act on her behalf. The administration cut off dialogue with the Maduro regime earlier this month. It then ramped up air strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats off Venezuela’s coast and offered a $50 million bounty for information that could be used to arrest Maduro. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has massed thousands of U.S. troops, warships, and other military assets off the Venezuelan coast and authorized covert CIA action on the ground. Officials privately concede that these moves are part of an effort to force Maduro from office.[Read: Why Venezuela?]Unseating an existing regime is hard enough; building a new one to replace it is even more bedeviling. Both Venezuelan and American history is stocked with cautionary tales of regime-change operations gone awry. In today’s Venezuela, the military is dug into power and faces considerable risk if Maduro is ousted. It will be an obstacle to his removal—and even if such an operation succeeds, reestablishing democracy afterward will be very difficult.For an outside power to topple Maduro would be a violation of international law and of Venezuela’s sovereignty. But the humanitarian and political case for doing so is compelling on its face. The Venezuelan leader has ravaged his country’s economy, causing it to shrink by an incredible 75 percent—the world’s worst economic collapse in peacetime. The resulting poverty, misery, and health crises have driven nearly 8 million people, almost a quarter of the country’s population, to emigrate. That has destabilized politics and fueled right-wing reactions against immigration across the hemisphere. Amid this wreckage, Maduro blatantly stole the country’s most recent presidential election and forcibly cracked down on the political opposition. His regime is deeply unpopular, corrupt, and authoritarian.Despite the escalating threats, Maduro and his military allies have steadfastly refused to step aside. For good reason: They may face severe consequences if they do.Years ago, Venezuela’s military could have plausibly sought an off-ramp from dictatorship through amnesties and constitutional protections that would afford its members a future under democratic rule. But such an arrangement is unlikely today. Maduro and several of his high-ranking military officials have been charged with narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, and other crimes in American courts. If they are captured, they could end up jailed for life, much as Panamanian President Manuel Noriega and several of his associates did in 1989. Maybe Venezuela’s military elite could find a way to remain in the country—but then its years of mismanagement and human-rights violations would likely catch up with it, making it the target of an incoming government’s retribution.If any faction of the military is likely to move against Maduro, it would probably emerge among lower-ranking officers who don’t face the same risks as the top brass. Indeed, some such factions joined a failed uprising against Maduro led by Juan Guaidó in 2019. But U.S. sanctions, pressure for political opening, and even a Guaidó-led parallel government failed to peel the military away from Maduro.Still, suppose that a coterie of low-ranking military defectors gathers sufficient momentum to depose Maduro, or that the Trump administration authorizes military action: What would replace the Maduro regime, and how?The political opposition, largely united under Machado’s leadership, promises a new dawn for democracy. Machado has described a pathway to rapid economic recovery through privatization, foreign investment, market liberalization, and macroeconomic and regulatory reform. Her vision calls for an influx of capital to rebuild the country’s broken health and education systems, and for investment in much-needed infrastructure improvements that could attract emigrants back to the country to help rebuild.The plan is alluring, but democracy works only if institutions function and the civil liberties of citizens can be protected. That in turn requires a capable state apparatus and a degree of political order. Both have crumbled in Venezuela under Maduro and his predecessor, Chávez. Armed citizen militias, criminal governance, and illicit economies have mushroomed across the country as the state has been hollowed out. The government has completely upended the foundations of property rights, making secure investment nearly impossible. Corruption and black markets abound; even state agents participate in them regularly. The currency has little intrinsic value.[Read: The U.S. is preparing for war in Venezuela]Against that backdrop, the institutions of government have withered. The judiciary is fully packed with pliable political allies of the ruling regime. The election authority and Congress are stacked with regime allies and no longer perform their most basic functions. Even local government, which remained somewhat competitive under Chávez and for a time under Maduro, has been undermined, as tax collection has plummeted and revenue sharing has dried up because of the economic contraction.The Venezuelan state needs to be rebuilt almost from the ground up. That’s a yearslong endeavor, and a new democracy would have to manage the expectations of citizens against the slow and rocky reality of state-building. In the meantime, it would have to contend with the gangs, criminal networks, and other powerful armed actors that have grown used to exercising local control. Even more Venezuelans may decide to migrate if they believe that opportunity is not being regenerated quickly enough, or if the state cannot rein in social violence.Venezuela’s first democratic revolution in 1948 and its subsequent democratic transition in 1958 hold lessons for today’s proponents of regime change: Establishing a durable democracy is far harder than unseating a dictator.