How did the involvement of the United States and the Soviet Union increase instability in Latin American countries?
1 Answer
The political rivalry between the United states and the Soviet Union increased instability in Latin American countries.
Explanation:
The United States, with the Monroe Doctrine, basically stated that it had "dibs" on Latin America. This included political oversight, and so most of Latin America was heavily influenced to become capitalist.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union (and the US) was trying to gain political influence, in part shown by the spread of communism, the idea that all property belongs to the state and is evenly distributed in the country. In practice, however, party officials often have most of the resources leaving the rest of the country to work.
Many poorer countries, such as those in Latin America following the departure of the Spanish, the French and the Portuguese colonists, see communism as a viable option, but because of the United States having "dibs" it created a weird sort of triangle. If a country were to turn communist, the United States, a communist-fighting country much closer in proximity than the Soviet Union, would make life very hard (with bans, taxes, etc.) and if a country weren't to turn communist its citizens could potentially be very angry.
This political triangle created a situation of instability in Latin America that is still being worked through (a prime example being Cuba).
