Dictatorships Have Weaknesses

Get your pens out and start identifying whether these 17 points listed below are happening. And no it is neither deja vu nor coincidence.

Guru's such as those in the Albert Einstein Institute who study dictatorships extensively have identified 17 classic weaknesses of tyrants.

These guru's also point out that non-violent opposition is the only sure-fire peaceful way to bring them down and that there about 198 ways to make that happen.

Read the book.

Dictatorships Have Weaknesses
Among the weaknesses of dictatorships are the following:

1. The cooperation of a multitude of people, groups and institutions needed to operate the system may be restricted or withdrawn.
   
   
2. The requirements and effects of the regime's past policies will somewhat limit its present ability to adopt and implement conflicting policies.
   
   
3. The system may become routine in its operation, less able to adjust quickly to new situations.
   
   
4. Personnel and resources already allocated for existing tasks will not be easily available for new needs.
   
   
5. Subordinates fearful of displeasing their superiors may not report accurate or complete information needed by the dictators to make decisions.
   
   
6. The ideology may erode, and myths and symbols of the system may become unstable.
   
   
7. If a strong ideology is present that influences one's view of reality, firm adherence to it may cause inattentionto actual conditions and needs.
   
   
8. Deteriorating efficiency and competency of the bureaucracy, or excessive controls and regulations, may make the system's policies and operation ineffective.
   
   
9. Internal institutional conflicts and personal rivalries and hostilities may harm, and even disrupt, the operation of the dictatorship.
   
   
10. Intellectuals and students may become restless in response to conditions, restrictions, doctrinalism, and repression.
    
    
11. The general public may over time become apathetic, skeptical and even hostile to the regime.
    
    
12. Regional, class, cultural or natioinal differences may become acute.
    
    
13. The power hierarchy of the dictatorship is always unstable to some degree, and at times extremely so. Individuals do not only remain in the same position in the ranking, but may rise or fall to other ranks or be removed entirely and replaced by new persons.
    
    
14. Sections of the police or military forces may act to achieve their own objectives, even against the will of established dictators, including by coup d'etat.
    
    
15. If the new dictatorship is new, time is required for it to become well established.
    
    
16. With so many decisions made by so few people in the dictatorship, mistakes of judgment, policy, and action are likely to occur.
    
    
17. If the regime seeks to avoid these dangers and decentralizes controls and decision-making, its control over central levers of power may be further eroded.

.....With knowledge of the such inherent weaknesses, the democratic opposition can seek to aggravate these "Achilles's heels" deliberately in order to alter the system drastically or to disintegrate it.