After the Cold War the US aggressively funded street protest movements to topple governments.

Evidence

But in the 1990s after Russian chaos led to capitalism, the US launched major efforts to remake the world in its own image. By the turn of the millennium, over $700 million a year was spent on democracy promotion, and in 2000 the US government directed a lot of money—not in North American terms, but enough to tip the scales in Serbia—to Otpor, or “Resistance,” the group that led the successful “Bulldozer Revolution” against Slobodan Milošević that year. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) made a difference too—in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, the Soros Foundation, named after the Hungarian American liberal philanthropist George Soros, helped support Kmara (the local version of Otpor), as did the National Endowment for Democracy. In November 2003, protesters there brought down President Eduard Shevardnadze, the man who had first run the country in 1972. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 163

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s overarching thesis on color revolutions and to the reader’s knowledge of NGO/regime-change literature. — connects to: Cold War rivalry led US agencies to fund state-led socialist-style development abroad. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1294; US Cold War aid demanded political allegiance and punished defectors; US facilitated Muslim violence when it served Cold War interests — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 288
• QUESTION: The $700 million yearly democracy-promotion figure and the specific Otpor funding amount would be worth chasing to a primary source.

Broader Connections

• US facilitated Muslim violence when it served Cold War interests #exemplifies (0.78) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 288
• US Cold War aid demanded political allegiance and punished defectors #expands (0.75)
• Cold War rivalry led US agencies to fund state-led socialist-style development abroad. #expands (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1294