Thugs

 All across the world, there are governments led by autocrats, dictators, and political thugs. These men are able to create and control networks of bureaucrats and military who dutifully follow them. These leaders do not represent their citizens and in fact repress them and build great wealth off the suffering of their citizens. 

There must be a predictable, even obvious, strategy used to gain such power. So how can this happen over and over without the larger world community being able to prevent it? Putin doesn’t represent his people. The same is true of Xi and Kim and all the similar men who are, in the end, filling their empty egos. While they sit well fed and comfortable in their palaces, their people suffer and struggle and even starve.