[gaadd33]

It has made all non-democratic forms of government illegitimate by waging wars of extermination against them

What about all of the dictatorships that the US created or propped up? Saudi Arabia, Iran pre revolution, Panama under Noriega, etc?

[barry-cotter]

Clients. None of these are remotely models for other countries to follow, alternative paradigms of government like Imperial Germany or Japan, or the totalitarian regimes that are now dust except for North Korea. The closest thing to an alternate respectable paradigm of government now is managed democracy, like in Singapore or Russia, which appears to be unstable, one more variety of anocracy.

The key is legitimate. Are there any dictatorships that don't even make a nod towards the idea of popular sovereignty? Any states where someone could say "L'etat, cest moi."?

As far as Panama goes, the US's Warsaw Pact.