Most of the post-WW2 twentieth century "hot" conflict in non-aligned countries is the result of a relative power balance between opposing forces - in Latin Amer

Most of the post-WW2 twentieth century "hot" conflict in non-aligned countries is the result of a relative power balance between opposing forces - in Latin America, specifically, the unwillingness of neither the US nor the Soviet governments to devote the full power of their militaries to the local geography, but rather a limited force that supported a local proxy (similar to how Iran currently supports proxies across the Middle East). None of these local proxies were sufficiently more powerful than the others, plus drug cartel interests typically developed their own power which itself was not overwhelmingly more powerful (sometimes, not overwhelmingly less powerful) than the other local players.