Quote Originally Posted by KingJaja View Post
This is not that much of an issue in Latin America or much of the rest of Asia
It's worth noting, though, that both Latin America and SE Asia were for many years absolute basket cases, riddled by extreme violence and horrendous government... with the US up to its eyeballs in both. The terms "banana republic" and "tinpot dictator" were coined to describe Latin American governments. Today, both regions still have problems, but both are relatively peaceful and showing considerable economic progress.

During the dark periods in both regions, US engagement was dominated by the agenda of suppressing Communism by any means, and often neglected the actual needs and circumstances of the countries in favor of an agenda imposed by the US. In both regions, a general scaling back of US engagement coincided with 9not necessarily caused) a general improvement in political conditions. Might be some lessons in that.

Overall, "the developing world" is a very broad place and I'm not sure it's possible to outline a map for US engagement in any sense specific enough to be useful. One thing we have learned is that the US cannot solve other people's problems, but beyond that, things pretty much have to go on a case to case basis.