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I (reluctantly) acknowledge the practicality of this, but what happens when those economic and political elite are too extreme and are overthrown? Supporting th

I (reluctantly) acknowledge the practicality of this, but what happens when those economic and political elite are too extreme and are overthrown? Supporting those actors creates a permanent divide and causes further isolation. Consider the various examples of regime change and/or support for dictators/authoritarians enabled by the United States in South America and the Middle East - has that made any of those countries (the US included) better off because there was alignment with political and economic elites? It seems like you make more enemies in the long run with this approach.

alephnerd 2y ago
> what happens when those economic and political elite are too extreme and are overthrown Regimes fall when subsets of the elite decide to defect to the opposition. For example, Hosni Mubarak fell not because of protesters in Tahrir Square, but because Sisi didn't feel like shooting protesters at that time for Mubarak's sake (Sisi had ambitions). If Sisi and the Egyptian military didn't decide to return to the barracks, the Arab Spring in Egypt would have never happened. The only solution to this is by actually cultivating multiple different factions within those elites. Yet this is something the US is not good at anymore because this kind of knowledge and understanding requires significant cultural background, and State Dept hiring regulations prevent people of the same ethnicity from working on relations for those countries. > Consider the various examples of regime change and/or support for dictators/authoritarians enabled by the United States in South America and the Middle East The most notable one in the post 1971 era is Iran 1979 where US cultivated the secular Shah's government and military leadership, but not the organized Shia clergy. If the US had cultivated Khomenini, we wouldn't have been in such a severe situation. The French on the other hand engaged Khomeini and Shia clergy, and it helped ensure that France could maintain relations until the sanctions regime began in the 2010s. By the 1990s, US foreign policy in Latin America changed to democracy promotion due to the same points you brought up, and that caused Honduras to switch in favor of China after corruption investigations threatened their leadership, and Nicaragua switched in favor of China due to pushback for democratic backsliding in 2017-18.

alephnerd 2y ago

> what happens when those economic and political elite are too extreme and are overthrown Regimes fall when subsets of the elite decide to defect to the opposition. For example, Hosni Mubarak fell not because of protesters in Tahrir Square, but because Sisi didn't feel like shooting protesters at that time for Mubarak's sake (Sisi had ambitions). If Sisi and the Egyptian military didn't decide to return to the barracks, the Arab Spring in Egypt would have never happened. The only solution to this is by actually cultivating multiple different factions within those elites. Yet this is something the US is not good at anymore because this kind of knowledge and understanding requires significant cultural background, and State Dept hiring regulations prevent people of the same ethnicity from working on relations for those countries. > Consider the various examples of regime change and/or support for dictators/authoritarians enabled by the United States in South America and the Middle East The most notable one in the post 1971 era is Iran 1979 where US cultivated the secular Shah's government and military leadership, but not the organized Shia clergy. If the US had cultivated Khomenini, we wouldn't have been in such a severe situation. The French on the other hand engaged Khomeini and Shia clergy, and it helped ensure that France could maintain relations until the sanctions regime began in the 2010s. By the 1990s, US foreign policy in Latin America changed to democracy promotion due to the same points you brought up, and that caused Honduras to switch in favor of China after corruption investigations threatened their leadership, and Nicaragua switched in favor of China due to pushback for democratic backsliding in 2017-18.