Some politicians like to refer to cases in which the United States intervened successfully in order to establish democracy; Japan and West Germany after WWII are the favorite examples. However, according to the recent empirical research discussed in Chapter 8 (on democratic transitions), evidence shows that although attempts at the external imposition of democracy may promote some democratic-seeming reforms in the short-run, they ultimately produce political instability in the target countries and are unlikely to lead to a stable democracy.Is this true or false?