Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones.

So, he reasoned, if you can identify the sources of a government's power - people working in civil service, police and judges, even the army - then you know what a dictatorship depends on for its existence.

Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones.

As soon as you choose to fight with violence you're choosing to fight against your opponents best weapons and you have to be smarter than that.

There’s one thing that’s been 'learned' maybe from Tunisia and Egypt that I think is a mistake. And that is that the existing ruler has to resign. He doesn’t have to resign. You take all the supports out from under him; he falls. No matter what he wants to do. This is the distinction in the analyses between nonviolent coercion in which he has to resign, but he’s forced into it, and disintegration when the regime simply falls apart. There’s nobody left with enough power to resign.

Contrary to popular opinion, even totalitarian dictatorships are dependent on the population and the societies they rule.

There should be no romanticism that international public opinion or even international diplomatic and economic pressure can defeat a coup without determined and strong defense by the attacked society itself