I think a very serious problem US analysts have is the assumption that French, British, Belgian and Portuguese intentions were/and still are pure. I've not seen much evidence of the US seriously probing say, British or French assumptions in the Middle East and Africa - instead, US takes them as gospel truth.

When the French and British ruled most of the globe, they picked favorites - and they still have favorites today; they haven't abandoned them. US policy has simply been to support the French and British - and their favorites - without fully understanding the societies they are dealing with. This we see in Mali, Niger, Chad and most of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The British governed most of Nigeria through Muslim Fulani aristocrats - their favorites. So British foreign policy in Nigeria will always be pro-Muslim Fulani aristocrat - and since US policy in Nigeria follows the lead of British policy, it will also have the same biases.

The policy of simply supporting ex-colonial powers and their favorites or seeing the Developing World through the eyes of ex-colonial powers might have worked during the Cold War; but it isn't going to work for very much longer.

The Chinese, for example are quite pragmatic about the way they see the World; they deal with present realities.

Why does the US insist on carrying the baggage of defunct British, French, Portuguese and Belgian colonial empires in the 21st Century? Are there no new thinkers or no new ways of thinking?