This is gunboat diplomacy ripped from the age of empires and dragged, screaming, into a world that has outgrown it.

Gunboat diplomacy never went away, its perpetrators just used other justifications for the same thing. Fighting communism (Korea, Vietnam) and terrorism (Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen), claiming that countries are "dictatorships" and have to be liberated (Iraq, Libya, Cuba), using mercenary groups like the Contras (Nicaragua), having presidents do it and then meekly apologize (W. Bush, Obama), claiming that countries are developing nuclear weapons (Iraq, Iran) have all happened, and I consider it identical to gunboat diplomacy. The tactics are almost entirely identical (invasion, overthrow, installing dictatorships), and its causes are the same (resources to be delivered to Imperial countries).

There is however obvious evidence of these excuses being more and more flimsy, and history being rewritten. That is from the desparation of Capitalism in decay.