Goldwater believed that our mission to bring democracy to the world was a fool's errand. He said there are some peoples who are not ready for democracy, and for religious or cultural reasons they would never be ready for democracy. The best we could hope for was a benevolent dictator, preferably one loyal to the US and not the Soviets.
Rand said there are 6,000 US troops there!
Madness.
He and Reagan actually split on the issue of taking democracy to the world.
Goldwater was correct.
We had an interest in stopping the Soviets, but the form of government did not matter. Reagan came over to his point of view...mostly. With Europe being the exception.