U.S. policy towards authoritarianism
United States foreign policy regarding authoritarian governments
- 9 min read
- 3 chapters
Related on Lably
Through Authoritarianism, Cold War and Modernization theory
During the Cold War, the U.S. provided support for state terrorism and anti-communist mass killings, including Operation Condor in South America and the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66. In cases like the 1953 Iranian, 1954 Guatemalan, and 1973 Chilean coup d'états, the United States participated in the overthrow of democratically elected governments in favor of dictators who aligned with the United States. The U.S.' claimed justification for support of authoritarian right-wing governments was the resulting stability that would facilitate economic progress and the idea that democratic institutions could be encouraged and built. Some critical scholars and journalists argue that it was intended to reinforce American business interests and to expand capitalism into countries of the Global South who were attempting to pursue alternative paths.
Background
During the Cold War, leaders of developing countries received political and economic benefits, such as financial support and military assistance, in exchange for their alliance with either the United States or the Soviet Union. As a result, some dictators amassed fortunes at the expense of their nations and were able to maintain their rule by building substantial militaries. The Soviet Union and the United States gained access to markets for their manufactured goods, and locations for their military bases and missile stations. According to Chirico, the two superpowers supplied weapons to dictators, which strengthened their armies and helped quell uprisings. According to a 2017 blogpost by anthropologist David Vine, the U.S. often rationalized the siting of its military bases in non-democratic nations as a necessary but undesirable product of defending against the communist threat posed by the Soviet Union. Few of these bases have been abandoned since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In The Jakarta Method, Vincent Bevins writes that the Cold War violence of the United States, in particular coups and the propping up of pro-capitalist military despots throughout the Global South, has deeply shaped the world we live in today, a "worldwide capitalist order with the United States as its leading military power and center of cultural production." Much of this violence was not directed against governments and movements aligned with the Soviet Union, but the Third World movements which were attempting to build something different, and thereby "destroyed a number of alternative possibilities for world development." He argues that contrary to the popular notion that much of the developing world peacefully and willingly adopted the capitalist system advocated by the United States and its allies, it's possible that without this violence, "many of these countries would not be capitalist at all," or at the very least would have banded together to "insist on changing the rules of global capitalism."
Ruth J Blakeley argues that the U.S. justification given for facilitating state terrorism and coups and installing military dictators, the containment and defeat of Communism, paints a distorted picture as it was also a means by which to buttress the interests of US business elites and to promote the expansion of capitalism and neoliberalism in the Global South.
Mark Aarons posits that right-wing authoritarian regimes and dictatorships backed by Western powers committed atrocities and mass killings that rival the Communist world. According to Latin Americanist John Henry Coatsworth, the number of repression victims in Latin America alone far surpassed that of the U.S.S.R. and its East European satellites between 1960 and 1990.
Sign in to keep reading
2 more chapters are free with a Lably account.
Examples
The U.S. government provided military, logistical and other aid to the Chinese government led by Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) in its civil war against the indigenous Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong. Both the KMT and the CCP were fighting against invading Japanese forces, until the Japanese surrender to the United States in August 1945. This surrender brought to an end the Japanese Puppet state of Manchukuo and the Japanese-dominated Wang Jingwei regime.
After the Japanese surrender, the US continued to support the KMT against the CCP. The US airlifted many KMT troops from central China to Manchuria. Approximately 50,000 U.S. troops were sent to guard strategic sites in Hubei and Shandong. The U.S. trained and equipped KMT troops, and also transported Korean troops and even former Imperial Japanese Army troops back to help KMT forces fight, and ultimately lose, against the People's Liberation Army. In his memoirs, President Harry Truman justified deploying Japanese troops against the CCP: "It was perfectly clear to us that if we told the Japanese to lay down their arms immediately and march to the seaboard, the entire country would be taken over by the Communists. We therefore had to take the unusual step of using the enemy as a garrison until we could airlift Chinese National troops to South China and send Marines to guard the seaports." Within less than two years after the Second Sino-Japanese War, the KMT had received $4.43 billion from the United States—most of which was military aid.
After World War II, the United States was in opposition to the Soviet Union, which it regarded as totalitarian and expansionist. During the U.S.'s global effort to organize the Western Bloc and oppose communist expansion, the People's Republic of China was also seen as an expansionist, totalitarian dictatorship.
In the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa, the U.S. supported authoritarian governments such as those of the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, the Somoza dynasty of Nicaragua, Fulgencio Batista of Cuba, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.
American diplomat Henry Kissinger initiated the U.S.'s arms-for-petrodollars program for the autocratic governments of Saudi Arabia and pre-1979 Iran, supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America, and supported Indonesian dictator and close U.S. ally Suharto. Jeane Kirkpatrick, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.) under President Ronald Reagan, was praised for her open support of pro-Western and right-wing oppressors including the Shah of Iran and Nicaragua's military dictator Anastasio Somoza, both of whom "were positively friendly to the U.S., sending their sons and others to be educated in our universities, voting with us in the United Nations, and regularly supporting American interests and positions even when these entailed personal and political cost".
Nigerian political scientist Claude Ake stated that while the U.S. continued to present itself as the leader of the free world in the 1990s, it sold more weapons to developing countries than all other arms traders combined. According to U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney and Senator John Kerry; "[d]espite rhetorical pledges to promote democracy and constrain the spread of weaponry worldwide, the Clinton administration has continued the Cold War and Bush administration policy of providing substantial amounts of weapons and training to the armed forces of non-democratic governments". In a 1997 report, Demilitarization for Democracy (DFD) said while democratic governments received 18 percent ($8 billion), non-democratic governments received 82 percent ($36 billion) of the $44.0 billion in arms and training provided to countries with U.S. Government approval during Bill Clinton's first four years in office. The authors concluded; "[t]he United States is increasingly dependent on the developing nations to keep its high share of the global arms market".
After International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, over suspected war crimes in Gaza, American politicians have threatened to impose sanctions on officials at the ICC.
Table of authoritarian governments supported by the United States
Rationale
According to Los Angeles Times, American authorities believe assisting authoritarian or "friendly" governments benefits the U.S. and other nations. According to Glenn Greenwald, the strategic justification for American support of dictatorships has remained constant even before and since World War II:
In a world where anti-American sentiment is prevalent, democracy often produces leaders who impede rather than serve U.S. interests ... None of this is remotely controversial or even debatable. U.S. support for tyrants has largely been conducted out in the open, and has been expressly defended and affirmed for decades by the most mainstream and influential U.S. policy experts and media outlets.
In her essay "Dictatorships and Double Standards", Kirkpatrick says although the U.S. should encourage democracy, it should be understood premature reforms may cause a backlash that could give communists an opportunity to take over. For this reason, she considered it legitimate to support non-communist dictatorships, saying a successful, sustainable democratic process is likely to be a long-term process in many cases in the Third World. The essence of the Kirkpatrick Doctrine is the use of selective methods to advance democracy and contain the wave of communism.
David Vine believe locating military bases in repressive nations is critical to deterring "bad actors" and advancing U.S. interests. According to Andrew Yeo, foreign bases contribute to the general good by ensuring security or financial stability, and support local economies by creating jobs. Bradley Bowman, a former professor at the United States Military Academy, said these facilities and the forces stationed there serve as a "major catalyst for anti-Americanism and radicalization". Other studies have found a link between the presence of the U.S. bases and al-Qaeda recruitment. Opponents of repressive governments often cite these bases to provoke anger, protest, and nationalistic fervor against the ruling class and the U.S. This, according to JoAnn Chirico, raises concerns in Washington a democratic transition could lead to the closure of bases, which often encourages the U.S. to extend its support for authoritarian leaders. This study says the outcome could be an intensifying cycle of protest and repression supported by the U.S, according to David Vine.
Dwight D. Eisenhower discussed the "campaign of hatred against us" in the Arab world "not by the governments but by the people". The Wall Street Journal reached a similar conclusion after surveying the views of wealthy and Western Muslims after September 11 attacks. The head of the Council of Foreign Relations terrorism program said that American support for repressive regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia is a major factor in anti-American sentiment in the Arab world.
According to Afoaku, the Cold War provided much justification for U.S. arms transfers to developing countries in the 1970s and 1980s. Proponents of the traditional paradigm assumed a rapid decline in U.S. arms and training transfers to these countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. U.S. arms transfers have doubled to an average of $15 billion per year, 85 percent of which has gone to non-democratic governments since 1990. This doubling of arms transfers, in the absence of a compelling strategic rationale, was the result of determined, costly lobbying by arms manufacturers, who wanted to replace their small U.S. military orders with foreign orders. The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), a Washington, D.C.-based association representing more than 50 major manufacturers, coordinated the lobbying and successfully pressured President Bush to approve the sale of F-15E fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. As a result of Israel's agreement to the contract, it also received the F-14E. AIA companies have succeeded in subverting U.S. policy of linking arms sales to human-rights improvements.
According to an April 2025 survey, known as Bright Line Watch, of more than 500 U.S.-based political scientists shows that the vast majority think the United States is moving from liberal democracy to a form of authoritarianism.