Chile's a very weird country, economically speaking - I don't think it's a good point of comparison.
I sort of sympathize with your thinking, but at the same time, the problem with foreign intervention, even the subtle kind, is it distorts a nation's political structure by creating client elites that have part of their power base outside of the nation. These client elites then have a power base that waxes and wanes according to the current disposition of the foreign power, so you tend to get very chaotic politics, even if the investment of the foreign power is somewhat small. You have to remember it's not just spooks - it's also an entire ecosystem of people trained in US universities, working for US companies, or even, benefiting from a US-oriented Argentina.
It's a fairly natural consequence of the US being such a big economy, and it's obviously going to create very unpredictable externalities for neighbors (drugs in Mexico, raw materials in Canada, etc).
I sort of sympathize with your thinking, but at the same time, the problem with foreign intervention, even the subtle kind, is it distorts a nation's political structure by creating client elites that have part of their power base outside of the nation. These client elites then have a power base that waxes and wanes according to the current disposition of the foreign power, so you tend to get very chaotic politics, even if the investment of the foreign power is somewhat small. You have to remember it's not just spooks - it's also an entire ecosystem of people trained in US universities, working for US companies, or even, benefiting from a US-oriented Argentina.
It's a fairly natural consequence of the US being such a big economy, and it's obviously going to create very unpredictable externalities for neighbors (drugs in Mexico, raw materials in Canada, etc).