The United States has regularly intervened in Latin American countries. Motivations include helping American businesses, supporting local elites, fighting communism, and maintaining order.

Current military bases tend to be small places to organize expeditions and collect intelligence through electronic surveillance. The many in Columbia have been to help interdict the cocaine drug trade. Interventions by the CIA have been behind the scenes, using spies, secret funding to governments, bribery to individuals, dirty tricks, assassination, mercenaries, drug running, and advise to local officials. Military occupations are characterized by troops sent to ensure payment of debts, restore or maintain order, depose Marxist leaders, and provide help to recover from disasters.US trops carried out minimal violence. US military interventions involved substantial violence against the local population. Marxist governments (except for Cuba) rarely lasted for very long, often removed by a coup, despite popular and democratic support. Marxist movements varied widely in how long they lasted or how much terrorist or guerilla violence they committed.