This chapter places the book’s theory into a historical perspective: It describes several ways in which the United States has interacted with incumbent leaders, and their potential successors, in partner nations. From this, the chapter identifies and operationalizes the mechanisms of the book’s theory in respect to the domestic politics of partner countries, differentiating between democratic and authoritarian partners. The chapter also operationalizes four dimensions of the relations between the United States and its partners: (a) the alignment of the foreign policies of the United States and the partner nations’; (b) the likelihood of coups in the partner nations; (c) good governance through the provision of public goods; and (d) the respect of human rights. This chapter, therefore, sets the stage for the systematic empirical analysis of Chapters 4, 5, and 6.