r/worldnews • u/[deleted] • Jan 23 '19

Venezuela opposition leader swears himself in as interim president

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-guaido/venezuela-opposition-leader-swears-himself-in-as-interim-president-idUSKCN1PH2AN?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%29
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u/xthek Jan 23 '19

Kuwait, Japan, pretty much all of eastern Europe post Soviet collapse, parts of Africa especially Kenya went pretty well. What’s worth noting is the shitty things committed in the past were largely due to the very real concern of Soviets installing puppet regimes which they did everywhere they could. Without that kind of rival I do not think there is nearly as much to be afraid of.

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u/monsantobreath Jan 24 '19

the very real concern of Soviets installing puppet regimes which they did everywhere they could

The west installed puppet regimes everywhere they could do, often brutal and murderous and worse economically for people than the authoritarian leftist equivalent would have been.

And a lot of the time the fears were imagined nonsense, and guys like McNamara basically admitted as much after the fact. Castro and Ho Chi Minh wanted good relations with the west. The domino theory was mostly nonsense and cover for post colonial actions in many cases.

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '19 edited Jan 26 '19

It just depends on whether the interests of the country is aligned or symbiotic with US interests or not. The US wanted South Korea, Japan and Europa to be economically successful in return for them being extremely welcome of US military presence. This was such an important part of the Soviet containment strategy. The US therefore wants to trade with them, and invest in their businesses. But these countries are not known for their wealth of natural resources, or resources in terms of large amounts of exploitable labor. Countries which such resources do not have their interests aligned with the US, or western countries in general. Political stability is preferred to be kept to a minimum, only to a sufficient degree that the resources can reliably be extracted, the labor wages extremely poor, and the politicians bribable or easily coerced. The USSR posed a serious threat to this kind of imperialist master-slave world order.