I think you missed that they have tons of hydro power available which is iirc cheaper or at least on par with burning fossil fuel, so they don't even need oil. Cheap power basically runs down their hills. (Similar to how in Iceland the hot water just spawns out of the ground. Yes I'm a little jealous.)
What they see is the old system of explore and exploit.
I had to read this a few times to be sure this really was the point you were trying to make.
One of many examples on how this is absolutely abhorrently untrue:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free...
Hold our currencies.
And this rational fear is becuase our currencies continue to devalue.
You did ask.
Which, ironically has plagued South America for quite a while - The reason Colombia and Venezuela have similar flags is they had the same wars and fight for freedom. They freed themselves from Spain and then became the institutions we know today. Corrupt, semi corrupt nation states, not on a national level but influence can be bought.
Africa no idea, but that's the thing, was it fully rejection?
Not every country can be the United States in terms of fighting for freedom, gaining independence and being successful. You can still go into many parts of New England and see lots of British influence.
Also Florida, and see much Spanish influence.
It isn't as much as "export" but building, having a plan and the problem then (and possibly event today) is that the people who are successful, ethical, moral and such are living comfortable lives.
Prisoners were most of the people that were on the Spanish ships that sailed to Venezuela and Colombia and built much of that, alongside prisoners were political refugees such as Jewish people and people who were destitute. Religious political refugees too, bad enough stuff but not exactly criminal.
You can kinda align it today with the people who are ground on troops with USA in AFghanistan, where we exported our way of life for 20 years.
Overnight, erased. The people there didn't want it, we didn't leave anyone part of the military behind and whomever had some influence slid into power or fled for their life.
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I don't even know where to begin w/ Africa, I'm not up to date on their History or such besides some/much used to belong to the French.
When Philips struck at Ekofisk some very smart people in the US/UK came to help them develop.
Norway was (by their own account) a country of scattered fishing villages.
By whose account, again? I grew up in Norway just before the oil boom started, and I never thought of the country that way. We had lumber, we had cheap hydroelectric power that we used to process aluminium and make fertiliser, and we were practically a global superpower in terms of ocean shipping. True, we weren’t rich in the way we are now, far from it – but weren’t that poor either.
A big part of our success as an oil producing nation is that we weren’t simply letting the (mostly) American oil producers just come in and do as they pleased; instead, we insisted on building our own expertise and running the business on our own terms. We hit many snags along the way, but it has paid off in the long run.
Only the best prepared attackers can wrestle control of those oilfields from the government and their delegates.
Whereas if oil is over land, all it takes is a few determined people to shut down production for weeks.
There's no clear explanation for why some countries are rich and prosperous and free while others are not. Anyone claiming to have such a theory is bloviating.
Futher, you assume that the default is democracy and prosperity and we must explain why some countries lack that. But that's not the default! The default is corruption, privation, and instability. Those were certainly the conditions preceeding colonialism. The real question is how to escape that, and we have no particularly good theories there either.
Finally, the idea that certain countries have no agency is insulting and unhelpful.
But it seems like you're completely absolving these countries and peoples of all responsibility for their country and themselves, that in and of itself seems like the Western elites' "these people can't help themselves" approach.
The reality is likely a mix somewhere between the two, variable for each country and circumstance.
It doesn’t matter how great a nation you have, if US comes along and decides to put in place a dictator to secure low oil prices.
If US invaded Norway tomorrow and put a corrupt religious fundamentalist in power, there is absolutely no way you could blame it on the country, the religion or the color of the skin of he people living there.
As an Iraqi I am tired of people absolving us of agency as if the US just walks in and installs rulers left and right. There was no let there be Saddam, there were a lot of power grabs, internal struggle, and consolidation that happens before someone like Saddam becomes Saddam, and the most a western power can do is provide funds or international legitimacy