"The sudden collapse of the Soviet Union left the political leadership of the United States unprepared. Military interventions had been undertaken in Korea and Vietnam with enormous loss of life, also in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, and huge amounts of military aid had been given all over the world--in Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia--on the supposition that this was necessary to deal with a Communist menace emanating from the Soviet Union. Several trillion dollars had been taken from American citizens in the form of taxes to maintain a huge nuclear and nonnuclear arsenal and military bases all over the world--all primarily justified by the "Soviet threat."
According to Polifact, "the U.S. has 662 overseas bases in 38 foreign countries, which is a smaller number than the 900 bases Paul cited." And according to CounterCurrents.org, the United States has ,invaded approximately 70 countries as of June 2014. A few of the invaded countries were Kuwait, Panama, and Cuba.
"The fear of 'independent nationalism' was that this would jeopardize powerful American economic interests. Revolutions in Nicaragua or Cuba or El Salvador or Chile were threats to United Fruit, Anaconda Copper, International Telephone and Telegraph, and others."
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