The United States tends to support dictators in nations hosting its bases

Evidence

Research by the Johns Hopkins political scientist Kent Calder confirms the “dictatorship hypothesis”: consistently, “the United States tends to support dictators [and other undemocratic regimes] in nations where it enjoys basing facilities.” Honduras and Bahrain, Egypt and Thailand, are far from an aberration. At the same time, research shows that authoritarian rulers have often used a U.S. base presence to ensure and extend their own domestic political survival. Some rulers, like the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos, the South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee, and Kyrgyzstan’s Askar Akayev, have used the bases to extract economic assistance from U.S. officials, which they have then shared with political allies to shore up domestic support. Others have relied on U.S. bases to bolster their international prestige and legitimacy or to justify violence against domestic political opponents. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 308

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces and names the ‘dictatorship hypothesis’ as coined by political scientist Kent Calder.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 308
• XREF: connects to: US policy in the MENA region consistently favored its geopolitical interests over democratic outcomes — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 367; US funds and arms its dictatorial allies to block domestic challenges