List of authoritarian regimes supported by the United States

Reunion of SEATO leaders in Manila, 1966, with the presence of authoritarian leaders Nguyen Cao Ky from South Vietnam (first from left, with Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt at his side), Park Chung-Hee from South Korea (third from the left), Ferdinand Marcos from Philippines (fourth from the left, with New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake at his right) and Thanom Kittikachorn from Thailand (second from the right, with US President Lyndon B. Johnson at his side)

Over the last century, the United States government has often provided, and continues to provide today, financial assistance, education, arms, military training and technical support to numerous authoritarian regimes across the world. A variety of reasons have been provided to justify the apparent contradictions between support for dictators and the democratic ideals expressed in the United States Constitution.

Prior to the Russian Revolution, support for dictators was often based on furthering American economic and political priorities, such as opening foreign markets to American manufacturers. Following the rise of communism, the United States government also began to support authoritarian regimes that it felt were combating movements aligned with communism, including socialist and democratic socialist movements, especially in Latin America. Such assistance continued despite the belief expressed by many that this contradicted the political ideals espoused by the US during the Cold War. Support was also geared toward ensuring a conducive environment for American corporate interests abroad, such as the United Fruit Company or Standard Oil, especially when these interests came under threat from democratic governments. Support for authoritarian regimes has been justified under various ideological frameworks as well, including the Truman Doctrine, the Kirkpatrick Doctrine and the "War on Drugs".

From the 1980s onwards, the United States government began to fear that its interests would be threatened by the increasingly popular Islamist movements in the Middle East, and began to work to secure cooperative authoritarian regimes in the region, while isolating and weakening, but not always removing, uncooperative ones. In recent years, many policy analysts and commentators have expressed support for this type of policy, with some believing that regional stability is more important than democracy. The United States continues to support authoritarian regimes today. However, international relations scholar David Skidmore believes that increased public pressure is motivating a shift away from supporting authoritarian regimes, and towards supporting more consensual regimes instead.

Authoritarian regimes supported

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Current president Barack Obama and Michelle Obama with Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan, September 2009, one of the most repressive regimes in the world, supported with millions of dollars in military aid.

Middle East special envoy Donald Rumsfeld meeting Saddam Hussein on 19–20 December 1983.

Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973.

Presidents Emílio G. Médici (left) and Richard Nixon, December 1971. A hardliner, Médici sponsored the greatest human rights abuses of Brazil's military regime. During his government, persecution and torture of dissidents, harassment against journalists and press censorship became ubiquitous. A 2014 report by Brazil's National Truth Commission states that the United States of America was involved with teaching the Brazilian military regime torture techniques.

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shaking hands with Augusto Pinochet in 1976.

Date of support	Country	Regime	Notes
1876–1911	Mexico	Porfirio Díaz	During the Porfiriato, tensions between the U.S. and Mexico were high.
1929–2000	Mexico	Institutional Revolutionary Party
1908–1935	Venezuela	Juan Vicente Gómez
1898–1920	Guatemala	Manuel Estrada Cabrera
1931–1944	Guatemala	Jorge Ubico
1952–1959	Cuba	Fulgencio Batista
1930–1961	Dominican Republic	Rafael Trujillo	Later overthrown with at least some aid from the CIA.
1954–1986	Guatemala	Efraín Ríos Montt Junta	See also: 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état.
1979–1982	El Salvador	Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador
1971–1978	Bolivia	Hugo Banzer
1976–1983	Argentina	National Reorganization Process
1964–1985	Brazil	Brazilian military government
1936–1979	Nicaragua	Somoza family
1957–1971	Haiti	François Duvalier
1971–1986	Haiti	Jean-Claude Duvalier
1968–1981	Panama	Omar Torrijos
1983–1989	Panama	Manuel Noriega	Later overthrown by U.S. in Operation Just Cause in 1989.
1954–1989	Paraguay	Alfredo Stroessner
1973–1990	Chile	Augusto Pinochet
1948–1960	South Korea	Syngman Rhee
1958–1969	Pakistan	Ayub Khan	See also: Pakistan–United States relations during the Cold War era.
1991–present	Azerbaijan	Heydar Aliyev Ilham Aliyev
1991–present	Kazakhstan	Nursultan Nazarbayev
1961–1979	South Korea	Park Chung-hee
1979–1988	South Korea	Chun Doo-hwan
1955–1963	South Vietnam	Ngo Dinh Diem	Later assassinated in a U.S.-backed coup. See also: Cable 243, Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem.
1970–1975	Cambodia	Lon Nol
1969–1971	Pakistan	Yahya Khan
1941–1979	Iran	Mohammad Reza Pahlavi	See also: 1953 Iranian coup d'état.
1985–1987	Iran	Ruhollah Khomeini	See also: Iran–Contra affair.
1965–1986	Philippines	Ferdinand Marcos
1978–1988	Pakistan	Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
1982–1990	Iraq	Saddam Hussein	Later seen as an enemy of the U.S. in the Gulf War and deposed in the Iraq War. See: United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war.
1956–1968	Indonesia	Suharto	See also: Allen Lawrence Pope.
1959–present	Singapore	People's Action Party
1984–present	Brunei	Hassanal Bolkiah
2011–present	Vietnam	Trương Tấn Sang
2014–present	Thailand	Prayut Chan-o-cha
1949–1953	Syria	al-Za'im-Shishkali-al-Hinnawi Junta	See: Husni al-Za'im, Adib Shishakli, Sami al-Hinnawi.
1990–present	Uzbekistan	Islam Karimov
1999–2008	Pakistan	Pervez Musharraf
1990–2012	Yemen	Ali Abdullah Saleh
1994–present	Tajikistan	Emomali Rahmon
2006–present	Turkmenistan	Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow
1945–present	Saudi Arabia	House of Saud
1999–present	Bahrain	Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa
1995–2013	Qatar	Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani
1970–present	Oman	Qaboos bin Said al Said
1954–present	Jordan	Hashemite Dynasty
1994–present	United Arab Emirates	United Arab Emirates
1961–1999	Morocco	King Hassan II
1969–1985	Sudan	Gaafar Nimeiry
1980–1990	Liberia	Samuel Doe
1991–2012	Ethiopia	Meles Zenawi
1979–present	Equatorial Guinea	Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo
1965–1997	Zaire, Democratic Republic of the Congo	Mobutu Sese Seko
1982–1990	Chad	Hissène Habré
1981–2011	Egypt	Hosni Mubarak
2012–2013	Egypt	Mohamed Morsi
1990–present	Chad	Idriss Déby
1986–present	Uganda	Yoweri Museveni
1987–2011	Tunisia	Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
2000–present	Rwanda	Paul Kagame
1936–1975	Spain	Francisco Franco	At times opposed diplomatically because of fascist leanings. See: Francoist Spain.
1933–1974	Portugal	António de Oliveira Salazar
1941–1945	Soviet Union	Joseph Stalin	Later considered an enemy of the US. See Cold War.
1967–1974	Greece	Greek military junta
1980–1989	Turkey	Turkish military junta
1969–1989	Romania	Nicolae Ceaușescu
1941–1975	Republic of China	Chiang Kai-Shek
1948–1957	Thailand	Plaek Phibunsongkhram

See also

• "Dictatorships and Double Standards"
• Foreign policy of the United States
• List of authoritarian regimes supported by the Soviet Union
• Operation Condor
• United States and state-sponsored terrorism
• United States and state terrorism

Further reading

• Turkmenistan: Recent Developments and US Interests. Jim Nichol. Congressional Research Service. August 17, 2012.
• Adam Taylor (10 December 2014). Brazil’s torture report brings a president to tears. The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 December 2014.

• "Notably, the report found that the United States had spent years teaching the torture techniques to the Brazilian military during that period."

• Noam Chomsky. Hegemony or Survival. p. 64
• Thomas M. Leonard (ed). Encyclopedia of the Developing World, Volume 3. p. 1572.
• Ríos Montt Genocide Verdict Annulled, But Activists Ensure US-Backed Crimes Will Never Be Forgotten. Democracy Now! May 23, 2013.
• Hugo Banzer. The Guardian. 5 May 2002.
• Laurence Whitehead (ed). The International Dimensions of Democratization : Europe and the Americas. p. 148
• Nicholls, David. "Haiti since 1930", in Leslie Bethell, Ed., The Cambridge History of Latin America. 1st ed. Vol. 7. Cambridge: 1990. 545-578.
• R.M. Koster and Guillermo Sánchez, In the Time of Tyrants, Panama: 1968-1990. (NY and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 1990), Ch. 4.
• Diana Jean Schemo (16 August 2006). Stroessner, Paraguay’s Enduring Dictator, Dies. The New York Times. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
• Thomas M. Leonard (ed). Encyclopedia of the Developing World, Volume 3. p. 1365
• Bush and Kazakh Leader Play Up Partnership, The New York Times
• Pyŏng-guk Kim, Ezra F. Vogel (eds). The Park Chung Hee Era. p. 552
• David P. Chandler, A history of Cambodia, Westview Press; Allen & Unwin, Boulder, Sydney, 1992
• John McLeod. The History of India.p. 152
• CIA Admits To Iran 1953 Coup, But Revelations Unlikely To Thaw US-Tehran Relations. International Business Times. August 19, 2013.
• The Iran-Contra Affair 20 Years On. The National Security Archive (George Washington University), 2006-11-24
• Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran. Foreign Policy. August 26, 2013.
• Former Indonesian Dictator, US Ally & Mass Murderer, Suharto, 86, Dies. Democracy Now! 28 January 2008. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
• Kai Thaler (December 2, 2015). 50 years ago today, American diplomats endorsed mass killings in Indonesia. Here’s what that means for today. The Washington Post. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
• The struggle for Syria The Syrian people are being sacrificed at the altar of US imperialism, says author.,
• 1949-1958, Syria: Early Experiments in Cover Action, Douglas Little, Professor, Department of History, Clark University
• Sean L. Yom & F. Gregory Gause III, "Resilient Royals: How Arab Monarchies Hang On" in Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World (eds. Larry Diamond & Marc F. Plattner: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), p. 124 ("Further, U.S. support for the regime's authoritarians orientation remains steady for geopolitical reasons: Qatar hoses a large U.S. airbase and adopts foreign-policy positions that enhance U.S. interests, such as backing the Western intervention in Libya").
• Jordan: Background and U.S. Relations, Jeremy M. Sharp, March 2015
• In 1777 during the American Revolution, Morocco became the first nation to recognize the fledgling United States as an independent nation. The U.S. has had supportive relations with Morocco since. This included the U.S. providing weapons systems to Morocco during the Cold War and since.
• Mobutu, Zairian Dictator for 32 Years, Dies in Exile. The Los Angeles Times. September 08, 1997
• David F. Schmitz. The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1965-1989. p. 9
• From U.S. Ally to Convicted War Criminal: Inside Chad's Hissène Habré's Close Ties to Reagan Admin. Democracy Now! May 31, 2016.
• The Soviet Union received substantial support from the U.S.after Nazi Germany invaded in Operation Barbarossa in 1941 to the end of the war in 1943, per the version of the Wikipedia articles accessed 2015-04-18 (and many other sources).
• Clinton concedes regret for U.S. support of Greek junta. The Topeka Capital-Journal. November 21, 1999.
• Birand, Mehmet Ali. 12 Eylül, Saat: 04.00, 1984, pg. 1
• Embracing the “enemy”: some aspects of the mutual relations between the United States and Thailand under field marshal Phibunsongkhram, 1948–1957