yeah, this was really my point. A (maybe terrible) modern analogy is how concerned would we be with a civil war in say, South America, where a significant chunk of our lithium comes from? We would probably be concerned, but our economic and military clout means that we would always be the customer for whoever won that civil war.

> We would probably be concerned, but our economic and military clout means that we would always be the customer for whoever won that civil war.

Don’t we typically just give a fuckton of guns and resources (and maybe more) to whichever side we want to win.

Absolutely not. We are also perfectly willing to overthrow democratically elected governments as well.

A good read about that: The Savage Wars of Peace.