ARGeezer:

What US actions, other than the relatively low interest rates, contributed to the Asian and Russian debt crises?

I thought the Assian and Russian debt crises of 1997-8 were due to liberalization and deregulation of the respective economies, with "hot capital" coming from the US playing the role of the trigger, not the primer.

The important US actions were through policy influence on the IMF, the close ties between the latter and the US Treasury, and propaganda bombardment about the superiority of deregulated capitalism as an economic model.

Economics is politics by other means