Lots of places have been unstable for many years though. China, most of Europe, Russia, India, Korea. Some have shrugged that off others haven't, so it does not seem to have much predictive power.
LATAM started from the get go being awfully disrupted from the 1500s and in catastrophic ways. Also, we don't call any of those areas Latin X. It shows how much impact the conquerors had that it even defines how we can the region to this day.
I don't think it is. Europe was full of wars, civil wars, conquest, occupation, and suppression and destabilization of competing nations for all that time, for example.
No, I'm talking about Latin America in general though. And yes it is certainly true there was colonialism, destabilization, economic coercion, and all that from large powers. I don't deny that. The examples I gave fit exactly the same description though. There was no "vast ocean" between the Ottoman Empire and Europe where it was throwing its weight around for centuries. Nor was there a vast (or any) ocean between China and colonial European powers, or later Japan.
So if "vast oceans" are part of your thesis, you are going to have to explain and define that far better, with a lot more supporting evidence and reason for your claims.
You can vaguely handwave and pontificate about differences between other examples and just assert without any real evidence or reasoning that must have been the cause of it. But like I said, that's just not scientific or even compelling in the slightest, really.
Ecuador 2010, Honduras 2009, Venezuela 2002, Haiti 1994, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador until 1990, Panama 1989, Grenada 1983, Bolivia 1980, Chile 1973, Dominican Republic 1965, Cuba 1961, Guatemala 1954, and so on until the territorial destruction of Mexico in 1848: all of them wars, coup attempts, occupations, protection of U.S. corporate interests, installation of military dictatorships, attempted assassinations of heads of government, etc.
These are recent events that naturally have a massive impact on the political and economic development of the nations concerned. And you want to equate that with the fact that the Turks were in Vienna at some point or that a nation of 1.41 billion Chinese has now recovered somewhat from European colonialism. Sorry, but that's ridiculous. The US bears significant responsibility for the poor political and economic situation in many Latin American countries. You don't have to agree with this assessment. But to pretend that there aren't a multitude of valid arguments for it is either ignorant or disingenuous.
No. It absolutely is not. It's just laughable.
> I don't wear a lab coat, and neither do you. You should take a look at yourself in that regard. You can't accuse me of lacking standards that you yourself don't live up to.
You are on the side of attempting to explain it away with "US interference". It's not whether I am scientific or not, lol.
> Ecuador 2010, Honduras 2009, Venezuela 2002, Haiti 1994, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador until 1990, Panama 1989, Grenada 1983, Bolivia 1980, Chile 1973, Dominican Republic 1965, Cuba 1961, Guatemala 1954, and so on until the territorial destruction of Mexico in 1848: all of them wars, coup attempts, occupations, protection of U.S. corporate interests, installation of military dictatorships, attempted assassinations of heads of government, etc.
Europe and China had massive wars. Coup attempts, assassinations, military dictatorships, etc. in the last century.
Without the Marshall Plan, Germany would probably be an agricultural country with a below-average GDP, just like Ukraine. You would have to be completely clueless to believe that weaker countries can develop freely and independently of the influence of the major powers in whose sphere of influence they find themselves.
If you believe that the differences in economic performance and political stability in different countries have other causes, then say so openly instead of beating around the bush.
It's a brutal dictatorship very similar to Iran. Let's all keep that in mind.
https://www.amnesty.de/sites/default/files/2025-03/030_2025_...
And it is simply irrational not to link Cuba's problems with the US embargo.
> The ages of the inmates ranged from 16 to over 60
The issues with ICE are because of totalitarianism too. So one would think we agree on this point.
How have they shown that? I think they've showed that they won't stop the war, but that's not at all the same as anticipating or countering the sanctions. Since they couldn't anticipate the war lasting longer than a week I think we can safely say they didn't anticipate having an ongoing war AND sanctions.
Yeah except for that time that Japan tried to conquer them while they were in a civil war.
If you feel like enlightening us how China fared worse than LATAM or you can avoid being all snarky like that.
And every place actively destabilized by an empire is definitely unstable.
The amount of coups directly planned and executed or supported by the US military/intelligence/lobbying apparatus in south America and the rest of the world is incredible.
And then the presidents have the audacity to say that it is the right and responsibility of the locals to govern (as said by biden on Afghanistan exit).
It truly has been the most exploitative empire ever. I hope the Chinese do better. We'll find out.
I don't know, and I cannot know. I can only hope.
> century-level timescales
Doesn't sound very scientific or predictive. Is also ignorant of history. Ottoman empire lasted many centuries. So did Roman empire. Which crushed and oppressed and destabilized a lot of Europe. China famously had their "century of humiliation" which was "century-level timescale" of "empire actively disrupting a region".