Over the last century, the United States government has provided, and continues to provide, 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 took advantage of McCarthyite fears to justify overthrowing democratically-elected presidents around the globe, especially in Latin America. The U.S. funded Right-wing opposition to these leaders and after the coups sent abundant aid, credit, and investments in order to persuade the dictators to prioritize U.S. interests. It spent heavily on CIA propaganda campaigns to undermine progressive leaders and destabilize the countries in order to help justify the military stepping in. The fact that the U.S.-backed military tanks met no Communist forces nor stockpiles of Soviet weapons as they seized power did not seem to hinder the U.S. government from continuing to cite anti-Communism as a reason for supporting these coups. In truth, the target countries often held resources the U.S. coveted, such as copper in Chile, iron in Brazil, and tin in Bolivia. Right-wing dictatorships were better safeguards of U.S. and transnational interests than leaders like Allende (Chile) and Goulart (Brazil). ^{[12] [25]} Such assistance continued despite the belief expressed by many that this contradicted the political ideals espoused by the U.S. during the Cold War and despite the fact that the dictators the U.S. installed tortured and murdered tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Continued support of dictatorships even after their human rights abuses were known was geared toward continuing to maintain a conducive environment for American corporate interests abroad, such as the United Fruit Company or Standard Oil. ^[43] While some ideological constructs such as the Truman Doctrine and the Kirkpatrick Doctrine attempted to justify such interventions, they did not justify supporting violators of the Geneva Convention. As of 2017, the U.S. government has neither acknowledged nor apologized for its role in not only suppressing reports of human rights violations caused by these regimes, but its own role in training the torturers, murderers, and death squads via the School of the Americas. ^[43]

From the 1980s onwards, after the Iranian Revolution, 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, weakening, or removing, uncooperative ones. ^[60] In recent years, many policy analysts and commentators have expressed support for this type of policy, despite that this contradicted the political ideals espoused by the U.S. during the War on Terror, with some believing that regional stability is more important than democracy. ^{[77] [90]} 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. ^[107]