It can be said that the Human condition, even in the face of cellular phones, sweet perfume and
utilitarian compassion, is nothing more than a giant competition in the name of evolution. Mankind,
with the world oblivious to its actions, is merging and purging, melding and welding, gelling and selling
its way to a better world order. There is no way to tell what that order will be, or to even recognize it
when it first comes about. You’ll never see it coming; you’ll never know until it’s too late and you will
never be able to stop it. But, you can take part in it, as powerless as you are.
This is how to take over the world.
Book One: The Rulers
Chapter One: The Leader
Every social body ultimately depends upon a leadership figure, one central to its organization.
This is a simple consequence of the nature of ideology; every political, social, religious or scientific
theory requires its icons, and every revolution depends on one. Caesar, Christ, Torquemada, Buddha,
Washington, Reagan, Obama, Ghandi; all these and so many more represent a social movement which
has impacted history in some fashion. These leaders arose for a myriad of reasons, each with their own
tale and each with their own fate.
The characteristics of the leader are naturally up for differential diagnosis; Bin Laden is a mad
parasite that has earned tremendous following simply from seizing on a vein of hatred running through
a religious body, while Martin Luther King Jr. came to the forefront of a movement through his refusal to
commit atrocities to achieve what he desired. Stalin’s invulnerability came from his control over a
secret police, while Joan of Arc’s might came from her apparent connection with God (or her delusions,
if you must take the Atheistic vain, or her ability to con people if it is cynicism you seek.) All of these are
lovely back-stories which proved the “who” part of the so-called “six W’s,” but the important question is
always going to be “how.”
In this case, how does the leader attain and retain power?
The answer comes in the form of another question, “what makes a leader in the first place?”
Firstly, every hero (for none may be seen as villains, lest their power be taken from them) must
come to the forefront with a modicum of public applause. Even the worst dictators to grace the pages
of a history book had attained what is loosely considered a “cult of personality.” While the
degeneration of his support is the punishment for excess, the leader must nevertheless have enough
popular respect in order to rise to the forefront to begin with. Attaining this notoriety is a matter of
much effort, and ultimately will be dealt with later in this book, but achieving it is mandatory. Without
popular support, without the base of the so-called pyramid, there is no chance that a leader – especially
in today’s ‘checks-and-balances’ ridden governments – can attain power even over one nation, let alone
the world.
Secondly, every leader must be romanticized. This logically follows from the first part of our
answer; when Winston Churchill is remembered by history, it is as the man who cried that Britain will
fight on the beaches and on the shore, and not as the man who was responsible for the Battle of
Gallipoli. Mao is remembered not as a man who stole land from the rich, but who gave it to the poor.
Castro? He is a hero who fought first-hand in a war of liberation. So long as these heroes (again, none
may ever be seen as villains!) are viewed as a necessary and respected governing figure, they may
extend their power without reprisal. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the only U.S. President to have served
four terms and he helped bring the U.S. through the worst depression and worst war in mankind’s
history; he also fiddled with the number of justices on the Supreme Court, oversaw the overhaul of a
large chunk of American domestic practices, and elected to work with Josef Stalin, dictator of the Soviet
Union. Were he to have been immortal, he would likely still be President of the United States, and for
good reason. Leaders simply defy the conventional wisdom and appear “larger than life.”
Looking back to the characteristics our leader must have, he must thirdly have the ability to
ignore and, ideally, neutralize his opposition – preferably from the first moment. Returning to FDR, his
opposition had the misfortune of being viewed (legitimately or not) as responsible for the Great
Depression. It would take until Dwight Eisenhower – almost twenty years later! – for the long-dead
FDR’s opposition to regain the foremost leadership role. Ronald Reagan had the ability to box his
political enemies out of the arena for some time, and George W. Bush had two years to reside in an
almost unquestionable position of power, one sadly squandered but nevertheless an opportunity.
Fourth, the leader must have the appearance of an ear to the people he governs and, as
importantly, those who are allowed to rule with him. If a leader ignores complaints, passes bucks when
possible, and fires his advisors when put into political jeopardy, he will go from “hero” to “villain” and all
will be lost. The leader cannot sit back and watch his people voice open dissent, nor can he solve all of
his problems through political repression. Approval ratings matter; although the numbers themselves
may be irrelevant, if the world feels a leader is unjust he will quickly be removed from power.
Fifth and finally, and perhaps the most important, is that the leader must have good advisors. It
sounds contrary to the whole concept of “ruling the world,” but there is physically no way that one
leader can govern an entire state, let alone nation or world. His advisors will be dealt with in Chapter
Two, but regardless they must be absolutely aware that they are almost, but not quite equal to the
leader. To take advice from the film “Lucky Number Slevin,” if there are two men in the room, you can
only look at one of them. A glance to another and a polite wave may be permissible, but an obedient
stare is a sign of dissent.
There are traits which may be considered by the presumptive leader, but they are all relatively
meaningless in the face of the above five characteristics. Appearing “human” is often a public relations
approach – letting the President be seen with his pet dog, or allowing the media to talk to his children.
The willingness to use force to achieve one’s goals is ultimately necessary, but there are so many
degrees and departments of brutality that it is assumed force of some kind will be used. It is assumed
that a leader will be strong-willed yet flexible; if he wasn’t, he would fail at one of the five above
criterion, say an inability to eradicate opposition due to arrogant stubbornness or allowing others to
walk all over him. Having a great amount of financial resources sounds like a prerequisite, but in truth is
only a step toward the position of leadership.
There is, however, one caveat. All leaders have limits to what they can accomplish, even if those
limits are temporary. FDR was unable to “pack the court,” Hitler was unable to cap his hungers, and
Caesar failed to win the Senate’s mandate for any role greater than “pin cushion.” Those limits may
change with time and effort, but they must be recognized and respected. When Roosevelt’s bill to pack
the courts failed, he acquiesced and signed a version of it stripped of its dangerous underpinnings. In
doing so, he preserved an appearance that he ruled for the people – and left open the possibility of
returning with popular support should he be able to generate it. A leader who had forced the issue by
vetoing the bill’s retooled form would have destroyed those alternative options and ultimately left
himself with little to work with.
The ultimate weakness for a leader, however, is mortality. Assuming no monumental
breakthroughs in medical science arrive over the next century which happen to remove death from the
picture, it is inevitable that all leaders will die. George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four addresses
this topic by creating a figurehead in the legendary Big Brother, but Big Brother is ostensibly not a real
person and thus not qualified in our conception of a leader. More pressingly, this isn’t Big Brother’s
ascension to domination, it is yours, and therefore that hellishly brilliant novel is little more than a
goalpost with which to measure yourself. You will never be immortal unless science advances so greatly
and rapidly that a computer microchip may be used to take your ‘soul’ and put it into a machine – and
even that is no guarantee. Leadership is only as functional as a lifespan is long; becoming the King of
Earth and dying two weeks later serves your successor well and your legacy less so, but it serves you
merely a high point to pass into the night on and not a dominion to govern. It may arise that leadership
of the world becomes impossible or not worthwhile; at that point, you may either seek an alternative
body to take power over, go out in a “blaze of glory,” press on in your conquests as Alexander would
gladly have done, simply retire to the history books, or never even begin your pursuit.
Regardless of what you, the leader, chooses to do, you will have to consider these traits well
before even embarking on your journey.
Chapter Two: The Advisors
Earlier, the topic of advisors and councilors was discussed. Leadership is a heavy responsibility,
and it is no surprise that even the most simplistic bureaucracy has multiple layers. Often, this system is
painted as a tree; the leader is at the top, and his top council is one step below him. Below that is
another council, and so on. Conversely, from the bottom-up, one may find village and town leaders who
work with, though often on different wavelengths, county representatives. They in turn report to the
state leadership, which – depending on your country of study – reports to a national body that many
times will answer to some global entity.
For the presumptive leader, this territory is extraordinarily dangerous. There is no way that one
man (or woman!) can know everything about everything; a specialist in military arms may be completely
flummoxed at the concept of managing an educational system, while a brilliant doctor will have little
idea how global economics works. Add to this the intricacies of various layers of bureaucratic nonsense
and one man becomes a drop in the bucket of legislative complexity; hardly an icon which can take
charge of a world!
Advisors and councilors therefore become a necessary evil to any who wish to lead. The key to
advisors, however, is to make sure they know their role and do not want – nor see any way to get –
more power than they already have. Yes; advisors must absolutely have power. They will be able to
sign documents and pass bucks, but that is natural. The Julio-Claudians kept the Senate alive as a group
of yes-men, the President has his cabinet and Stalin had scientists be in charge of the science, after all!
Ultimately, their power will be unquestionably great; without it, they would be nothing more than
worthless figureheads anyhow, and if their power is too low they may feel pressured into improving
their station – at the leader’s expense.
On the other hand, their power cannot ever be so great that they decide to advance themselves
up the ladder of might. An “accidental” promotion, such as Truman’s ascension to the Presidency in the
place of FDR, is acceptable; replacements are necessary, after all, and the price of refusing to create
rules of succession may be a successor who the leader does not have any control over. Their power
must certainly not be so great that it can overcome the leaders’ – it does little good to claim absolute
authority and find yourself vetoed by a councilor who has little to do with the issue but wishes to draw
attention to himself or dress down a rival.
In fact, it may be said that the choice of an advisor will make or break the leader. Appointing a
blundering fool to a crucial position will hurt one’s public relations standing – and heaven help you if you
make an imbecile your media representative! Furthermore, an unruly and uncontrolled advisor is a
threat to other advisors and oneself. This rogue agent might merely develop a rivalry with another
advisor, but even this prospect is tragic as the leader will inevitably be forced to choose one side or the
other, and will likely end up having to dismiss one or another. At worst, well, assassination attempts
often come from those closest to the ruler, as Hitler discovered to his chagrin.
In the same vein, advisors must never become indispensible. This situation can evolve through
the amassing of a great deal of political power; even an absolutely loyal advisor is a great risk if everyone
reporting to him is loyal to him and not the leader! The most dedicated servant can be inadvertently
excluded from his role and ultimately abdicate through the aforementioned “rogue agent,” leading to a
division within the leader’s organization and a guaranteed cataclysm as a result.
Following this, the leader must be aware that his advisor will have advisors; the Secretary of
State has a Deputy, and the Deputy has assistants, and so-on down the line, until Joe Average is
reached. This chain of command is simply intrinsic; bear witness to the dozens of ranks in any military
organization! It is, in fact, an ally of the leader’s if simply handled in an appropriate manner. The leader
can’t know all of the advisor’s subjects, but can dedicate some time to identifying the most capable (and
the most troublesome) workers in order to reward, ravage, or remediate the underling. If a superiorranked advisor is due for retirement, the capable subordinate may be promoted; if the subordinate is a
complication, he may be asked to retire!
In a sense, the leader becomes little more than the “high king” of old – the lord of lords, the
maker of nations. From atop his pinnacle, the leader decides who will have what role in running the
world, and can decide with nigh-impunity when someone’s usefulness has begun, altered, or ended.
Provided he remains the “hero” and never becomes the “villain;” provided you are a just and fair
dictator and not a psychopathic sycophant, you will find that your advisors do little more than the name
entails – advise. They make your job easier, make it possible, and in return you make their power an
unalterable actualization of reality: There is no hope for promotion without production, there is no
penalty enforced without purpose, and there is no prayer for a purge of the pontiff of power.
Chapter Three: The Middle-Men
As mentioned earlier, the leader will have advisors who will in turn have advisors; all the way
down to more localized department heads. If we are looking at the United States as an example, there
is a Congress that serves as a (theoretically) direct connection between Joe Average and the leader
himself. In some governmental systems, this parliament can be a tragic hindrance to a leader’s
autonomy, as checks-and-balances systems are designed to keep absolute leaders from rising in the first
place! In other systems, the middle-men (as we shall call them) are little more than figureheads, too
divided and too cowed by the leader to resist his every whim.
After choosing his advisors and approving their choices of their own, the leader absolutely must
streamline the chain of command to report to him whenever possible. This cannot be an obvious move;
if the President of the United States tried to dismiss the House of Representatives, revolution would not
be far off (though, if played right, this may be a brilliant tool!). Instead, the same tactics as ensuring an
advisor is loyal must be used; promotion for the deserving, dismissal for the problematic. If the leader
can ensure that his political faction works according to simple, static rules, there is little hope that he
will emerge from a meeting with his middle-men incapacitated and with less than he desired. The Nazi
Party transformed democracy into tyranny not by a seizure of power, but by a manipulation of the
approved political process; they simply walked out of votes they did not want to have. At first this was
only a hindrance, but as their numbers grew the Weimar republic could not legally process any laws that
the group walked away from, forcing the falling democracy to deal with them on the Nazi’s terms. All a
leader has to do is ensure his middle-men are well disciplined, voting not along party lines but along his,
and he has won.
Unfortunately, this prospect is incredibly difficult to secure. People are by nature power-hungry
(you are reading this book, correct?) and thus will naturally want to place terms and conditions upon
their support. Perhaps Congressman Bob will support the leader’s resolution so long as he is promised a
promotion to an advisory slot? Maybe Congresswoman Jane is anxious to see her district lavished with
wealth before agreeing to make a decision in the leader’s favor? The exact nuance will at first seem
random and often seem foolish, yet with time all such costs of compliance will become predictable, and
thus an answer will become clear as to how to compensate for the complication. Bob wishes to be the
leader himself; either make him feel as though he’s won without winning, or make sure a bus takes a
wrong turn into his car – he will be a threat. Alternatively, Jane is simply good-natured and wants to
make sure a children’s hospital is built and funded; this is a lovely opportunity to seem generous and to
have your name on a building. The exact mechanic will be as diverse as the problem it solves, but
ultimately the leader must pull together his coalition and ensure it does not buckle. Bear in mind, this is
no easy process; the “hero to villain” transformation can doom a leader who handles this procedure
wrong.
Once you have secured your political base, the exclusion of your rivals’ middle-men can begin in
earnest. The first step is in marginalizing the dangerous competitors; Stalin’s purge of Trotsky is a
perfect, if violent example. Often, leaders in today’s world cannot simply resort to the pistol and must
manage to handle things politically. Perhaps your rival has a habit of approaching senatorial pages?
Perhaps he’s recently been caught meeting with a prostitute? Perhaps he’s simply easy to paint as
wrong on one issue and it transforms into a pattern of mistaken ideology leading to a fall from grace!
Once more, the exact mechanic is where the test in a leaders’ skill comes from. Nevertheless, your
opponents must be removed in order to ensure that your middle-men become everyone’s middle-men.
Now that you control Congress, the immediate temptation is to completely destroy the most
wild and unlikely of your rivals – the Dennis Kuchinich and Pat Robinson, so to speak – while
simultaneously passing the most drastic of your reform bills…Say, the one which abolishes term limits.
This temptation is succulent and sweet, and a sure show of your superiority over your associates. It is
also the fastest way to failure one could ferment! You, as the supreme leader, will always have an
enemy that seems an easy target; and, if pushed, he will become your most dangerous threat. There
will always be legislation you need to pass to secure your reign, but it cannot appear on the docket until
you have paved the way for it. Take as a case study the proposition of Harriet Meyers as a Supreme
Court Justice. Ludicrous! It was shot down! And, if this was truly the President’s pick, than he was a
fool. But, if it wasn’t, he certainly made his next choice seem much more profitable to the public!
Restraint as a leader is absolutely necessary in the pursuit of prosperity in power. Without a
calm and collected outlook, without self-constraint when it comes to consolidating your control, you will
not only lose; you will lose badly. Once again, we return to the example of FDR packing the Supreme
Court; he explained it well to the citizens, he had a mighty voting bloc in Congress, and he still failed to
capitalize on his fantastic desire. He retreated when necessary and therefore spared himself an early
retirement, but his limits had been made clear and he was, for the moment at least, thwarted.
So, what does a leader do with his captive government? Nothing, at first. As all roads are
rerouted to Rome, its Emperor sits on his laurels and reminds its residents of the reason he was
requested to rule. The day-to-day rigors of leadership take time to adapt to, just as it takes time to
master any job. Hopefully, the initial difficulties a leader faces are nothing short of simple; a trade
dispute with a generally-subjugated neighbor is filled with its share of minefields, but is nothing
compared to a hypothetical 9.3 earthquake in a major city. It may seem boring and even beneath the
leader’s no-doubt-prodigious self image, but six months of handling nothing more difficult than sidelined
legislation and never-had-a-chance disputes provides the leader, his advisors and his middle-men with
the equivalent of a pre-season football game – A chance to find out who can (and who cannot) handle
the difficulties that the consolidation of power presents. Advisors can be benched without public cries
that a vital cog was removed from the machine just when it malfunctioned, middle-men can sink or
swim depending on how their constituents swallow the leader’s agenda, and the leader himself can take
a much needed vacation from his rise to power and spend it making a name for himself as competent.
While it can be successfully argued that a major challenge early in the leader’s tenure can create
an early impression that he is incredibly gifted at leadership, it can also spell his demise or, perhaps
worse, his lingering malaise. Those who watched the Twin Towers fall saw a leader do, at first, what any
leader should; lead! Yet, as time progressed, his later sins have rightly or wrongly led to an investigation
of his initiative on that day, and seven minutes reading “My Pet Goat” tend to make a defining moment
less definitive. In his defense, every leader will have weaknesses and every leader will have stumbling
points where he ends up on the night-time talk shows as a punch-line; however, that time is never
during a catastrophe that may have been averted had proper measures been taken, and certainly could
have been mitigated.
After setting the tone with simple, efficient strokes of success, the leader’s next step must
certainly be to enter the phase where his select middle-men lay the groundwork not for his rise to
power and not for the duration of his reign, but instead for the continuation of it. This is when you, as
the leader, start examining ways that your legal tenure can be extended or your reach made so great
that you rule despite not ruling. The best contemporary example is Vladimir Putin; legally unable to be
President, he simply moved his office to another location, changed his job title, and appointed what may
(or, against his hopes, may not…) be a patsy into his old position. In essence, this simple change of
“leader” to “advisor” and “advisor” to “leader,” complete with the transplant of the ones filling the
roles, is one way to guarantee a life-long leadership position. Another, as hinted at before, is the
extension of term limits or the exploitation of a lack upon them. FDR is the only American President to
have served for four terms, bucking a trend – but not a law! – created by George Washington. After his
death and with some time for reflection, the nation’s laws were changed to match the old, once-broken
trend. There remains, however, political recourse for these rules to be changed! This is why the middlemen are so important; their checks-and-balances only exist so long as the will to resist does, and with
the leader in firm control of his middle-men, all it takes is the creation of a new position or the removal
of old laws in order to secure a life-long reign. According to its own constitution, Adolf Hitler was
elected to lead a democracy – without a vote ever being cast for him.
It is worth noting once again that all of this is simply a first step; allowing a leader to rule for
eternity is impossible, and it is extremely unlikely that (without some catalyst) the democratic process
will be wholly removed from a leader’s mind. Gone are the days when kings could govern a manor
without reproach, if ever they existed; instead, voters hold the ultimate tool of a leader’s defeat –
revolution. Democracy is nothing more complicated than the substitution of the ballet box for the
bazooka, and if the voting station is smashed by the leader’s minions, they too will be smashed by
would-be voters, even if they would have supported his rule. The leader will have to remain ever
vigilant that he does not alienate his subjects; however, he doesn’t need to pander to them. Instead of
attempting to abolish the vote, he may try subvert it somehow. This is not a new practice, but it is one
that must be constantly refreshed. However you slice it, nothing will make a better pie to feed the ego
than a legitimate victory over a valiant but ran-in-vain opponent. Bill Clinton decimated Bob Dole in the
1996 elections, though Dole was a qualified and competent candidate; no more than the usual rigging or
racketeering contributed to the win.
The middle-men may serve a great capacity in enabling the leader’s rule, but they must always
be watched and under control. If they fall out of line, they become the single greatest threat to a
leader’s rule; they can recruit the masses under their purview into rebellion and can seduce a leader’s
advisors into mutiny. More than one would-be ruler has lost his dominion due to a middle-man
convincing his immediate supervisor that he could be the new leader, all for the small price of an
advisory role in the new government. For reference, merely consider how Roman generals could march
on the capital and overthrow the Emperor supposedly commanding them; the image is undeniable. On
the other hand, as a tool for ascension…
Chapter Four: The People; the Average Joes
Wait. This is a book about taking over the world; a book that you are reading in order to put
yourself above the very ones that this chapter is discussing. Your goal is nothing less than the conquest
and domination of those very people who, if fortune smiles, might one day serve your every whim. If
this is the case, why should you focus a minute on how to deal with those who you strive to place under
your heel? Surely, they aren’t worth worrying about!
If you ever had a hope of succeeding in the dream of global domination, you would know how
foolish the above sentiments are. The people are the ultimate rulers of any domain, no matter how
much power any one man, any one leader can attract to his throne. As was referenced earlier, the
ballot box has replaced violence as a form of conflict resolution, but the destruction of the first leads to
the initiation of the second. From Star Wars to the Molotov Cocktail, fiction and fact both dictate that
resistance movements are both plausible and in fact likely. Also as referenced earlier, it is far preferable
for the resistance to be laughable and inept than desperate and dangerous. Purges lead to the second,
tolerated televangelism leads to the first. Keeping this in mind, there are a number of things which must
be remembered when dealing with the Average Joe.
First of all, it is a simple mathematical fact that 49.9% of all people are below average when it
comes to intelligence. It follows, naturally, that 49.9% are therefore above average. In practical terms,
one could extend the median intelligence to a range of 50% of the populace, and create a ratio whereby
25% of people are truly “intellectually advantaged,” 50% are average, and 25% are “intellectually
disadvantaged.” The Stanford-Benet IQ test carries a similar line of thought; a score of 100 is “average,”
a rating of 80 or less is considered a key sign of mental retardation, and a total above 120 signifies that
the test taker is intellectually superior to the Average Joe. These numbers are naturally open to
interpretation and prone to failure due to the nature of attempting to assess “intelligence,” but the
underlying truth is derived from simple math and simple deductive reasoning – If there is such thing as a
middle ground, some people have to be superior and some inferior. As a side note, this same theory
applies itself to economic prosperity, ensuring that even if everyone is at a high standard of living, there
will always be those who are comparatively poor.
So, what does this have to do with the price of global domination on Earth? The second fact to
remember is that most Average Joes will consider themselves somewhere in the higher rankings of
intelligence. As the hallowed George Carlin once put it, every other driver on the road is either moving
too fast or too slow, and almost all of them are simply terrible at it. If you do not consider yourself in
the intellectually superior group, why are you even reading this book? (Though, it would be amusing to
see someone rule precisely because he was unintelligent!) Democracy – no, most of modern liberalism is almost entirely based in this theory. Why is the freedom of speech important? Because everyone has
the right to express their opinion, no matter how erroneous it might be! What about voting, why is
democracy so powerful? Because everyone has the right to have their chance to pick their leader, even
if that leader is wholly incompetent!
This, in fact, brings us to the third consideration that a leader must have when dealing with the
people. Average Joe has predominantly chosen the ballot box for his political arena, and most measures
require a simple majority to pass in any given nation. A simple majority is a mere 51% of all participating
voters; that is, all you need is one more than half the people voting to side with you, and you win! This
isn’t a tremendous problem in the United States, which is a representative democracy and therefore has
a thick layer of separation between the Average Joes and the advisors and leader, but it ultimately
presents a great deal of concern for any leader attempting to get his middle men into the positions he
needs them in! Furthermore, if one accepts that a representative democracy accurately portrays its
subjects, the first and second point of this chapter remain just as true for the middle-men as for the
Average Joes; some will be smart, some will be dumb, most will be middle-of-the-road. This is rarely the
case, but is worth contemplating. Nevertheless, numbers matter; having a 15% approval rating is a sure
way to ensure that anyone you are associated with is doomed to failure; and, naturally, a 90% approval
rating is something most leaders strive to have.
Fourth, one must always remember that people will produce role models that will indirectly rival
the power a political leader holds. Movie stars, excellent athletes, and successful businessmen will
always be cropping up no matter how you choose to run your nation. These figures, if riled up and
annoyed, will prove major stumbling blocks to retaining power. Ronald Reagan proved more than a
mere hurdle to another would-be leaders attempt to gain power! Inevitably, some of these denizens
will grow disaffected and will dare to deal damage to your domain. Often enough, however, they will
either serve as willing tools or the aforementioned laughable opposition. In the former account, they
will contribute to your financial coffers and become public relations sponsors for your causes in
exchange for small and easily granted favors that only sometimes present the simple risk of being
beyond your scope of political authority – avoid this temptation and you have an easy to please ally. In
the latter account, wealthy film stars crying foul about your administration’s lack of assistance to the
poor tends to come off as disingenuous, so long as there is nothing less than an actor’s guild revolution
on your hands. Simply paint them as rich people who are out of touch with reality and they are
thwarted.
Finally, one must remember that the mob, as some might call it, is fickle. It will embrace a cause
as quickly as abandon it, and can be easily distracted by manufactured crises. It can often be rebuked –
especially in the case of a foreign nation’s populace – but can never be ignored. It can sweep a leader
into power or drag one out of his mansion to be basted with tar and covered in feathers. The Average
Joes are a powerful force, one that must be mastered in order to be governed; yet, never patronized
and made to feel insulted. It is easy to write people off as sedated by television, but in the event that
they wake from their haze it would be a grave error of judgment to allow them to know you once felt
that way of them. However, they are the ones you will rule over as the leader of everything, as your
domain increases and your might grows; and they are the ones that must view you as a hero, not a
villain.
Chapter Five: Foreigners
Ideally, at some point in your reign the notion of “foreigners” will officially be dissolved. On the
other hand, in even small nations there are feelings of the exotic and the outlandish, and there is almost
always a sense of ethnic inequality to overcome. To become the leader of the world, one must first lead
a nation and then lead all other nations; hardly an easy task! However, if one’s ambitions are merely
national, than this chapter is geared more toward your liking and needs.
Barack Obama spent a week overseas and throughout Europe he was hailed as a hero; at home,
newspapers printed articles discussing whether or not the foreign love for him might compromise his
domestic duties to serve the people of the United States. Some people will appreciate his multinational
bent, while others will paint him as un-American and therefore a dangerous selection to lead the nation.
The debate will always wage on and will be different yet similar in every politician’s case. This
unavoidable consequence of a globalized world leaves the prospective leader confounded as to how to
please all people.
The short answer is, you can’t; and, since you must make someone unhappy, it seems expedient
to make the foreigner less happy than the citizen. This is fine for the leader of a nation, but the leader
of the world cannot aspire to play favorites. He must, instead, be able to ensure that his policies make
clear sense to those who scrutinize them at home and abroad. They must consider, but avoid
predication based solely upon the impression that a foreign ally may have upon them. To create a
hypothetical situation, yet one grounded partly in reality, is the best way to demonstrate:
A new environmental bill is proposed through global channels. The bill may indeed weaken the
leader’s domestic productivity on a gross level, but the scientific facts he has shows that a net decrease
will manifest in five years if the bill is not signed due to, say, the depletion of fisheries. Domestic
opposition exists primarily because the candidate will have to authorize a small number of job losses; on
the other hand, foreign citizens stand clearly to gain them. Then, of course, there are those nations who
have no intention of signing on in the first place for various reasons. What should the leader do?
The simplest answer and one which provides the least room for challenge is to simply refuse to
sign the bill. His people are kept happy in the short term, even if the long-term economic damage is
going to be worse. The likelihood is that less people will challenge a decision that can provide direct,
immediate, and tangible benefits as compared to one which will prevent far-away, vaporous phantoms
from causing damage.
However, a true leader will have already consolidated his power so sufficiently that the middlemen and advisors can weather the storm and implement legislation in favor of a long-term benefit. Yes,
the Joe Averages will be angered, and a scant few middle-men may find themselves in (hopefully) mild
amounts of easily diverted hot water, but as this book intonates the leader will be reigning for quite
some time. In five years, those who signed this bill may indeed be viewed as heroes who bucked a
conventional standard, put their political capital in jeopardy and ultimately won; valiant legislative
warriors tend to find their approval ratings to be quite high when they turn out to be right.
While cases such as the above allow both sides to win, sometimes there are situations when one
simply cannot come up victorious and still allow their counterparts to do the same. A border or trade
dispute, narcotics trade, and even such issues as terrorism and electronic security intrusions provide a
clear “us versus them” condition in which the leader has only one legitimate option – defense of his
people. Foreign politicians often try to assure a leader that by following the course the outsider
suggests, he – if not his people! – will benefit. Selling one’s land to outside developers is a perfect
example; it will give the leader a great amount of money, but when (not if) the Average Joes discover,
they will wreak havoc on the middle-men and so on until the leader is overthrown.
The most important thing that a leader can remember when dealing with foreigners is a twofold rule: Part one is simply that other leaders are only out for their own power and prestige and are, by
virtue of being leaders, your ultimate rivals if you wish to be the top of the top. Secondly, the leader
must always, and under all circumstances, pursue a course which he and he alone sets; if others choose
to follow, they may, but there is no room for others to do anything more than offer suggestions.
Demands are simply intolerable.
This rule may appear, at first, to be in stark contrast to a multinational approach to governance.
The President of the United States certainly can’t view the Prime Minister of Britain as an enemy, can
he? Well, if the issue is trans-Atlantic trade, it’s quite probable that the British will have a different
agenda, and slightly less possible that theirs will be incompatible with the American one. This is to be
expected and even encouraged, and does not make compromise and cooperation impossible. It is
frequently possible to enter a deliberation with (for instance) seven points on one’s agenda and to
bargain off two of them which were unlikely to work (a reminder to always know one’s limits!) and quite
possibly designed simply to be destroyed. If the acquiescence of these two pointless positions yields the
acquisition of one profitable promise, the leader has succeeded in making almost everyone happy once
again. Of course, there will always be hard-liners who refuse to give up something as trivial as a name
and would rather not have something as vital as an extra vote in a council if it means their town’s name
is no longer on the placard, but such pundits and their positions have already been painted as
“laughable opposition,” no?
In general, the foreign citizen’s approval of a leader is only relevant so long as there is a concept
of foreign to adhere to. As a leader consolidates his control beyond that of his own borders, he will find
that foreign opinion transforms into domestic. He will also find that old grudges die hard; the AustriaHungarian empire dealt well with this issue, and after its demise…Well, the term “Balkanized” had to
come from somewhere, no? The presumptive world leader must de-balkanize the world, soothing old
grudges and creating a system which works to make all people as happy as possible. Each new
territorial acquisition will bring new challenges, and it is quite possible that a leader who was quite
young when taking the reins of power might not have a long enough reign to unite the world under his
shoulders. In this case, his successor may benefit greatly from his work; yet, the leader himself, now
deceased, will pass into eternity (Whatever that may be!) as part of a history-defying evolution of
national identities.
It is in dealing with the myriad peoples under his rule that a leader finds trouble. Average Joe
has thousands of counterparts; Average Yao, Average Malik, Average Quami, and Average Juan, to
name a few. It may seem incredibly backward to discuss the difficulties that the unification of different
ethnic groups will present; in fact, it may seem regressive to suggest that they should be unified at all!
However, the opposite of order is chaos, and chaos is impossible to reign over by definition. Order is
brought about by rule, and it is – despite what some will certainly argue – to rule over and unite people
without invoking the scepter of racism. It will be infinitely hard for Average Joe, the “winner” of the
world leader lottery, to accept that Average Juan has equal rights under the law and that he does not
obtain a special asterisk on his citizenship papers as a result of being, well, whatever ethnicity the leader
is. On the other hand, it may seem unthinkable to some that a law may be passed which restricts their
ability to act, publicly, in a way which deters their ancient customs.
To that end, it is a simple matter of making sure one’s middle men and advisors have their game
faces on. There will be many more middle-men, and many more who have grudges against one another.
There will be many advisors that must be added, specialists in the newly acquired territories, and some
may not yet be “on board” with the leader’s rule. Then, of course, comes the would-be leaders who
would love nothing more than to ride the coattails of the unifier and become the leader in his own right.
It is not a task for the weak of heart, that is for certain; unifying and conquering the world through
peaceful means is downright complicated, and is a task which even the greatest minds will stumble in
approaching.
No matter how much it may be tempting, the leader cannot rule by decree initially. With a
major expansion of power comes the need to reconsolidate it. Imagine a deck of playing cards, with one
card added atop another; the neat and steady stack quickly devolves into a convoluted pile of leaning
plastic which has no order or stability. A reconsolidation is necessary to prevent it from collapsing, and
that is exactly what the leader must do.
Book Two: The Tools
Literally speaking, a tool is something that a person uses to assist them in accomplishing a goal.
Hammers are used to drive nails into boards in order to put a house together, so why would the world’s
leader go without them? A tool, when it comes to leading, is nothing more than a venue for that leader
to exercise and develop his power.
With all tools comes a major risk, of course. Just as a buzz saw can speed the time it takes to
saw a plank in half, it can easily remove a fingertip. Used well, these and other tools can assist a leader
in his rise to power with drastic speed. Used poorly, they will damn him.
Chapter Six: The Media
The first obstacle any would-be leader must overcome is the fact that he is, put dramatically,
rising from the obscurity of the masses. While this book’s lessons are just as good for the currentlyruling politicians as they are for the political neophyte, the latter is the more likely audience and is
therefore a figure sitting about his living room without a mass of cameras in his face. The path to
attaining media attention is crucial because without it, a leader will have nobody to vote for him when it
comes time to initiate the first phase of his coup, but the phrase “media jackals” exists for legitimate
reason.
As with many aspects of the book, these pages can’t tell you how to get media attention. Oh,
there are some ways that are more effective than others. Becoming a demagogue is excellent for rising
to moderate fame in a political party, but the Al Sharptons and Bill O’Reillys of the world do not rule,
they simply set some trends. There is little to no chance that they will ever do more than serve as
grandiose heads of state, and for good reason. Their methodology for attaining political strength is, put
lamely, the means of division rather than unity. Nevertheless, they have their purposes for our leader.
Another path which is difficult to take is becoming part of the media, itself. Chris Matthews and
Katie Couric wield considerable power when broadcast over the nation’s airwaves, but they do not lead
the nation itself. True, if some media figures were to run for office they would hold a fair chance of
winning and thus inserting themselves into the necessary path this book suggests must be taken; most,
of course, would fail.
One route to strength is to find a single issue and become a leader due to one’s presence on
that stage. Carolyn McCarthy suffered a traumatic experience, but her dedication to preventing such
tragedies from happening to others led to her ascension to a position of power. War veterans, their
service bold and often well done, tend to make electable candidates for the simple reason that they
have put their lives on the line for the country. Sadly, this type of media coverage can make for an easily
contested selection process; simply attacking the candidate’s service can, if played well, destroy his
chances for election.
In all reality, the reality is nothing more than a self-interested machine. It can be depended on
to promote its own agenda and to therefore print stories which it and it alone defines fit to print. That
said, making sure it determines your stories fit and the other person’s not is a crucial determiner as to
whether or not you win an election. For example, if your rival promotes a policy benefiting the east side
of the nation as opposed to the west, a friend at the news desk can simply leave out its benefits and
focus on its negatives. When your rival pulls off some form of successful venture, making sure that the
media focuses on a celebrity’s wedding prevents him from being recognized by Joe Average as a
victorious champion of his interests.
The same thinking applies in reverse to the leaders’ policies. When he is right, the media needs
to make sure everyone is aware. “Crime drops 17% in two years thanks to Leader” sounds lovely, even if
some forms of crime have risen. On the other hand, when the leader has failed, the media needs to be
counted on not to capitalize on it in order to make a quick buck. “Asbestos poisoning results from
Leader’s decision” is often a difficult story to face down, though with time all things may be forgiven.
So, how best to accomplish the task of controlling the media? Initially, one must work with
them; make sure that you always offer them a friendly and polite interview, you inform them, and you
remain free from easily-found aggression. If you seem “on the level” you will end up being able to give
them the information they need to make a good article. If you must lie, do it tactfully and make sure
that evidence cannot surface; if there is any risk, you must abort the lie if at all possible. If not, than you
will suffer a public relations injury indeed.
Once the leader’s rule is established, however, the media often seeks to make its money from
him. Embarrassing photos, a focus on bad decisions and a focus on would-be rivals creates controversy;
everyone loves an underdog and everyone loves to see those in power fall! While the leader
consolidates his political power as outlined in Book One, he will also have to consolidate his media
control. If the press is friendly to him, excellent; it can remain so and be left alone. If not, it is unlikely
that laws passed to restrict the freedom of the press will be able to escape their notice. Therefore, the
best thing to do while consolidating political power is to simply stay out of the limelight. Once more, a
national emergency may serve as a useful tool, but otherwise it is best for the leader to allow his
advisors to take the public heat that the Joe Averages may distribute. Provided said advisors are
competent, they will never face true jeopardy and will easily keep the media from finding a single
pincushion to make a profit from. If not, the firing of a fool will force the public to respect a leader’s fair
hand.
As a leader’s power in the nation becomes unmatched, a friendly approach to the media
becomes less necessary; however, it still cannot be directly dominated or destroyed. Instead, the media
must be made to either love the leader, or be despised by the populace. Many times, it will be infinitely
simple to play one news source against another; simply allow Channel 1 to interview you and Channel 2
will want to. If Channel 2 wants such an honor, however, it may have to retract certain statements it
made…True, or not. If Channel 2 doesn’t get the interview, that’s okay; Channel 1 will gladly broadcast a
second interview which allows you, the leader, to directly refute what Channel 2 says. Perhaps, even,
Channel 2 has violated some law which allows you to shut it down. Its advertisers than flock to Channel
1, and victory is assured – An unofficial state media has been established.
Ahh, but what if Channel 1 in this case decides after getting its fair share of the profits that it,
too, can control how the leader represents itself to the press. Again, if it is only mildly irritating, then it
may be tolerated until later phases of dominance take place. If it is a danger, perhaps a friend can seek
to establish a new outlet, Channel 3, and force Channel 1 back into competition for your attention and
its own survival. Perhaps Channel 1 has also committed crimes and can be legally shut down. Or,
perhaps, Channel 1’s attack on you was its last gasp before you shut it down, anyway.
Once a dictatorship is established, its first task must be to control or eliminate the media. This
much we already knew; but, if there is no media, how does information spread? Rumor is an
unwelcome recourse – any fool with a conspiracy theory can tell you that the President is really an alien!
So, instead, there must be a media network to make official statements. Does it have to be statecontrolled? No, but a state-sponsored media network may not be a terrible idea. If free-market
competition exists, than one may simply have such a network be allowed limited authority in dealing
with the other independent channels; at least, so long as such a situation serves the leaders’ interest.
Ultimately, the equation balances at victory. Once the leader rules the world with an iron fist
covered in velvet cloth, it matters little what the media says. Certainly an egregious abuse of power
may lead to revolution or simple rebellion, but as long as the leader remembers that Joe Average can
always drive a car into a building to express his anger and therefore doesn’t cripple his own agenda
through cruel and unnecessary evils of administration, the media will have to serve as nothing greater
than a mouthpiece for the leader’s ideas and for what he wants his citizens and subjects to know.
Chapter Seven: Economics
If it can be argued that there is any one fact which has led to warfare time and time again, it is
the central concept of economics: There is unlimited demand but a limited supply. In some instances,
warfare begins over a resource as simple and, to some parts of the world, plentiful as water. A drought
can inspire widespread death and, to stave it off, one nation may invade another. Other times, it is
something as meaningless as “living space” that leads to war – territorial acquisition with little rationale
behind it. Whatever the reason for conflict, economic power is the end result of this struggle for
resources, and it is a powerful force for a leader to master.
It may seem cruel and unusual to intentionally starve a populace, or to willingly underfund a
school district in order to ensure that its wealthy residents leave while its poor ones suffer, but
demographic gerrymandering is a fact of political life. It is one of the harshest tools to use – children die
because of economic disadvantage every day in every city in every country. It is also an incredibly risky
tool to employ, as the dissidents who are impoverished will at best turn to crime (often violent) and at
worst lead an uprising against the leader’s governing body. Lastly, it is a very imprecise weapon of
political opportunity; “white flight” is uncontrolled and there is no easy way to determine what will fill
the power vacuums. With that in mind, there is one golden rule to using economic warfare as a means
to gain power:
Those who are being exploited, disadvantaged, and damaged must feel not as though they are
being starved, but as though they are being blessed for what little they do have.
Modern-day consumerism has performed admirably to this goal. Television and radio bombard
people with advertisements for cellular phones, denim jeans, video game consoles and myriad other
indulgences of modern day society. Government programs exist to help the poor get food and water,
and public education will always allow the best and brightest to have an escape route. (Provided they
aren’t snuffed by a local criminal.) In the minds of many people, even those who are barely making it
through day to day purchases, there is a prevailing sense that they are better off today than they were
yesterday. Even better, this can only be proven false tomorrow, allowing leadership figures to blend
one ‘day’ into another until all sense of dilapidation is eradicated.
The first part of being able to manipulate economic forces in order to make a leader loved is to
ensure that no matter what circumstances occur, the human essentials are taken care of. Would-be
rulers often starve their populace into submission, but that is an ineffective and resentment-fermenting
method for dealing with the problem. Instead, supplies must be simply stretched thin; prices must rise
enough that it annoys, not enrages. Services must be intermittent, but never absent and always fixed in
a timely fashion. Luxuries must be made available for those with the money, as money appears
impartial even if it is dealt out in a partisan nature.
The second part is that the leader can never be seen as the cause for the ineffective
infrastructure, but instead must be seen as the cure. The leader’s entire mindset going into an action of
economic warfare is to be seen, again, as a hero. Let’s study a hypothetical example.
There is a district which the leader needs to vote for his candidate, but it isn’t looking good for
the middle-man. That district has an aging (or, if not aging, “aging”) power grid. The first step is for the
leader to ensure that the grid’s age is felt by all citizens; power outages are damaging as they prevent
internet access, lead to food spoiling, and make the weather felt either through the deactivation of air
conditioners or the deprivation of electric heaters. People will feel the power grid’s age, real or not.
After creating the dilemma, the leader must swoop in and fix it. He can’t simply snap a finger
and have the problem solved; there must be at least some occurrence of trouble in its solution. On the
second or third try, however, and with the help of a close advisor and some middle men – primarily the
one that needs to be elected! - The leader must cause the problem to disappear.
Needless to say, with a quick and effective solution to a difficult problem, the leader’s candidate
appears competent and electable. He has done the people a direct service, the leader’s political
advantage is improved due to his involvement while his advisors and middle-men have put their skills to
the test and won. Life has become easier for the leader, all thanks to an artificially created economic
issue.
Large-scale economics is much more risky and difficult to exploit. One example is the “brain
drain” which occurs when an impoverished region’s best and brightest elect to leave the area and never
look back. This is most often seen in “ghetto hoods,” where those who become wealthy and successful
focus their life’s efforts on areas outside of the area from which they emerged. These policies are
extremely risky as they create areas where little hope can be seen for quick, painless recovery should
the leader wish to create an enterprising area out of a particular neighborhood. In one sense, this
provides only another opportunity for him to prove himself – for who would mind seeing a gang-ridden
ghetto cleaned up? But, the danger lies in the region’s violence and drug problems expanding to other
reasons, instead.
The bottom line is economic development and the granting or withholding of funding is a tool
best left to those who have studied it and have no better recourse. If handled well, it can allow the
leader an easy inroad to power. In the event it isn’t handled well, it will doom the leader’s bid for
power, forever.
Chapter Eight: Legalities
Governments are often cited as being examples of the benefits of the “rule of law.” As far back
as Hammurabi’s Code, governments have set laws and followed – or not followed – them. Laws exist
primarily to protect interests from other interests, establishing the rules so that all people can know
what they are, fair or not. Legalities, therefore, are an important weapon in the leader’s bid for power.
There are two major facets of legal power which can be exploited. The first, as discussed in
some depth earlier, is the legislating body itself. The middle-men, as explored previously, are often
collected into a legislative body which is meant to check the leader’s decisions. Ironically, one of the
first things the leader must do is subdue this balance, converting the body into nothing more than a
multi-person rubber stamp. The laws that this body passes must be the will of the leader in spirit if not
in letter.
Following this, it is a matter of timing and planning for the leader to use laws to prevent
opposition from fermenting. A gentle way of doing this is to graciously accept a popular demand for a
law – if 70% of a nation wants a narcotic legalized, the leader has simply to oblige and ask his middlemen to do the “right” thing. His public opinion polls will, as one may have guessed, improve even as the
nation’s drug addiction is made more socially acceptable. However, this book would be a sham if it
didn’t point out some less-than-gentle means to employ the power it promises! Gerrymandering, the
carving up of voting districts to help guarantee an incumbent will never be challenged, is a classic
example of less-than-gentle persuasion, but another is simply an inverse of the gentle method. If it is
known that a particular political opposition group has a penchant for a particular intoxicant, all the
leader must do is see to it that the drug is made illegal overnight. A minor annoyance at first, addictions
will ultimately prove hard to break and the sudden “drug busts” that the leader pulls off will both make
him look like a defender of the people and will break up the opposition in a hurry.
There is, however, a second and less subtle method for enforcing a leader’s will through legal
restriction, and that is the enforcement agency itself. The DEA, FBI, CIA, and a dozen other bodies have
at times been used by a leadership figure to perpetrate actions against a political opponent. The
aforementioned “drug bust” is a lovely little number that sees a popular figure shamed into submission,
but there are plenty of ways that selective and proactive law enforcement can cripple an enemy. Let us
examine what happened to Senator Larry Craig – He was caught doing something that has absolutely no
victims, simply soliciting another male partner for sexual intercourse. Two consenting adults having a
sexual interaction is nothing terrible, but the fracas created by the arrest and the ambiguous
associations in the atmosphere caused the affair to be blown out of proportion and to ultimately doom
a political powerhouse.
Of course, sometimes it isn’t so easy; sometimes, evidence is scant or nonexistent, and may
therefore require manufacturing. This is far from a best-case scenario, but is easily surmounted
provided two things are in place – firstly, a plausible scenario that works directly against the target’s
professed ideologies; secondly, a clear and precise exit strategy in the event that the evidence does not
stick and the public reacts against the persecution.
Let us create a hypothetical scenario, once more. Senator Harrison is a middle-man who has
gotten out of the leader’s control and needs to be removed from his position. He professes a strict antinarcotic stance, opposed even to Marijuana despite having never done it. This in itself is fine, however
the police managing to get his fingerprints or his aides involved in a bag of dope is a very fitting end for
his career. The crime itself may nationally be seen as meaningless – a Senator smoking weed is about as
common as grass in the suburbs, at least in the minds of a cynical populace – but the fact that Senator
Harrison was so staunchly opposed to the substance causes cracks to emerge in his political foundations.
If he was involved in a drug deal, maybe he’s involved in prostitution – and, maybe, he’s involved in
selling out his constituents, as well. However, it is always possible that the Senator will be exonerated
of his involvement –the evidence may come up falsified, or too thin to lock him away. If so, the best
way out is to simply acknowledge a mistake was made and to move on. Frequently, enough public
doubt will be raised about him that the next scandal – real or recited, now that there are more eyes
watching for flaws – will condemn him. Ideally, he won’t survive his next re-election, especially without
the leader’s full backing in exchange for his wayward political ideology.
Another perfectly legitimate line for consideration is the plight not of the victim, and not of the
populace, but of the police officers themselves. Dirty work is hard on the human soul, and while elite
military units might be a bit more hardened to the actualities of murder, civil servants such as the police
often take their jobs because of a sense of right versus wrong. Oh, that’s not to say there’s no such
thing as corruptibility – people, with time, can be made into willing pawns in the larger games of
political dominance, such as taking money from the mafia or from a politician looking to cover up a
crime. Instead, it is simply necessary to study the psychology of the police officer – interested in
protecting his community from crime.
Imagine Officer John of the Everytown Police Department. He finds a fourteen year old in
possession of Marijuana. What will he do to best protect his community? Arrest the child and charge
him as an adult? Of course not! Send him to juvenile hall? If the child was involved in another crime at
the time, or had a prior record of such offenses, perhaps. Most likely, Officer John is going to confiscate
the narcotic, ask the child where he got it, notify the youth’s parents and pursue the dealer – unless, of
course, the child refuses to cooperate.
This response is perfectly expected, and absolutely fitting for any leader to accept. Forcing
Officer John to arrest the poor pothead would serve no purpose – the youth’s future would be ruined
and the officer is likely to feel an incredible amount of guilt. Guilt can be a leader’s friend, as it leads
good cops to darker persuasions and therefore lead to easier-to-coerce security officers; on the other
hand, a leader must be a hero, and allowing a child a second chance is the best way to appear merciful
and, thus, heroic. Officer John will firmly believe in his cause, even though it will be harder to get him to
pummel a political opponent that deserves a pummeling should the time come.
However the leader chooses to employ the legal proceedings of his nation on his subjects, he
will have to do it with discretion. A police state is aptly named and easily recognized; in early years of
his rule, it may cripple the leader’s ability to expand his borders as other nations array against his
internal policies. The police must never be given a free, unrestrained hand to torment the innocent, or
revolution will rise to overthrow the leader’s dominion.
Chapter Nine: Education
It is always worth remembering that the overwhelming majority of what a person knows has at
some point been taught to them. From the languages they know to the subtle “body language” they
posses, from the mathematics they use to balance their checkbooks to the histories they live believing,
everything that a person knows has likely been taught to them in some sense.
First, consider the subject of history – If a leader is to rule forever, it must seem as though
history itself supports his domination, right? To an extent, the answer is yes. History books are written
by historians, and if the historians can be made allies in a leader’s quest for power, it is all too easy to
simply reshape the more debatable facts of historical process. It may be compelling to create a society
where the leader has historically been present; simply imagine a Dali Lama type of situation where the
leader is descended from a deity. However, the leader himself cannot hide his mortality forever, and
some day succession will be an issue. If the leader cares at all for the future generations beyond his
reign (often nice, but not necessary) he would avoid such a condition of leadership. Nevertheless, it is
certainly possible to amend history so that the leader’s rise to power coincides with a miraculous
economic, military, or social recovery – even if no crisis existed before his rise. John Kennedy’s brilliant
handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis is a perfect example of an easily transformable historical incident; it
would have been child’s play to alter the historical interpretation of the event to intrinsically tie
Kennedy’s prowess and the nations’ success into one mere thought. Make the crisis appear worse and
make Kennedy appear more commanding, and there you go; a leader who saved the nation and
deserves its eternal reigns, for there would never be another like him.
Mathematics is an extremely difficult subject to understand, let alone manipulate. It is possible
for an educational system to intentionally mis-teach certain mathematical facts, but ultimately it serves
the leader little purpose to tinker with the numbers behind his reign. It is far better to focus on the
more vulnerable facets of the society than to intentionally harm a nation’s ability to do physics.
Linguistic manipulation is a frequently discussed topic, from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to
the myriad debates about whether or not slang is an acceptable form of self-expression. Generally, it’s
accepted that people think in words; at the very least, it’s virtually impossible to separate words from
thought processes. It’s true that there are words which most people wouldn’t recognize; ubiquitous,
capricious, and telemetry serve as perfect examples. Other words have had their meanings obscured
through political usage; collateral damage is a term used to distract its listeners from the fact that it isn’t
simply a non-harmful mistake, but innocent villagers being slain.
Another way that education can be used and mis-used is for the leader to designate who
receives proper information and when. It’s no secret that people who are looking to start families will
buy a home in large part based on the school district it lies in. A good district will attract wealthier
people who can afford the higher taxes; a bad one, the inverse. It was discussed earlier how educational
gerrymandering can lead to the creation of “ghettos” and of wealthy enclaves; it is certainly worth a
reiteration here, as well as an expansion. Once again, the leader must turn to the middle-men in order
to create such an atmosphere. Perhaps there is one willing to play the “bad guy,” to be an intentionally
sub-par academic administrator. His policies fail not just painfully, but spectacularly; graduation rates
plummet, taxes rise, and good teachers find a fast way out of town. Wealthy residents soon follow, and
new ones stop coming to live in the district. Naturally, as the tax base sinks, property values are not far
behind and overall, the tax rates are low enough that lower-income people can afford to live there.
Seeing as neighboring towns have all been bolstered by the wealthy choosing other locales to live in, the
administrator has succeeded in creating a gaping hole where expectations are vastly lowered and
therefore people of a certain economic (and, often following, political) bent can be deposited.
While never foolproof, this process has the added bonus of being reasonably reversible and, as
always, it is open to historical revision as discussed earlier in the chapter. Simply ask the
aforementioned “bad guy” administrator to change some things about in his office and he will manage
to lead a revitalization of the community. Some of its residents will be lifted from poverty and into
middle-class suburbia, while others will simply move on to less fortunate prospects; after all, as the
district improves and property values rise, they will be unable to afford the taxes of their former homes!
Most importantly, with just a few minor shifts, an able administrator can make himself (and thus his
superiors) look competent, look to have solved a crisis that could easily be pinned on alternate causes.
Suddenly, the leadership has made a terrible problem for its own convenience, achieving its ends just in
time to fix the failures of the educational system and appear heroic as a result.
Perhaps it falls upon this chapter to discuss the internet. As a source of instantaneous
information, it will constantly be a thorn in a leader’s side; unless transformed into an ally. Ultimately,
people will constantly question their leadership, and a relatively harmless medium such as this is perfect
for disposing of “youthful energies” that might otherwise be spent in physical protest lines. Remember
that, while information may move at the speed of light on a fiber-optic cable, words on a screen will
never physically bar a worker from entering a factory. So long as the internet is restricted to being used
as a location for “venting” and not a repository for legitimate and illegal information – let alone a venue
by which a foreign power or internal dissident may cause legitimate damage to the national
infrastructure – it remains a useful little tool for a leader to monitor but not destroy.
Once again, it falls to the leader to decide on how best to manipulate the education of the
young to his whims. The Hitler Youth proved a brilliant stroke of genius, shaping and molding young
men into nigh-suicidal footsoldiers for a desperate last stand against an invading, almost unbeatable
enemy. The traditional Boy Scouts associations provide a great means for a leader to make forays into
the manipulation of children’s minds; just as any other conceivable extracurricular activity could be.
Today’s in-vogue high school organization is the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. It gathers young
children of any and all race, creed and gender, places them in a position of promised authority – that is,
once the program is completed, the solider will be an officer – and channels their efforts toward serving
the state apparatus. It offers the soldier opportunity and advantages, while providing their peers with
the subtlest of nudges that they, too, can share in the promise if they sign their name at the dotted line.
As always, a true leader will invent his own ways of manipulating the world around him, and
education is only one facet of that world.
Chapter Ten: Warfare and Military Force
Without a question, the bluntest instrument of a leader’s governing orchestra is the armed forces of his
nation. Used properly, it can be a tool to build international acclaim while expanding one’s territory to
encompass the entirety of the world. Used poorly, it will lead to the death of not just the leader, but his
entire nation and its sovereignty. It certainly seems like a game of some sort; like Risk, a leader’s
simplest option for expanding his territory is to use military force.
Unfortunately, military conquest isn’t by any stretch a legitimate option in today’s world.
Geopolitical balances of power are predicated on the concept of peoples having the right to choose their
leaders, at least on paper. There are two primary motivations for this, both of which overlap. The first
of these reasons is that it allows leaders to tell their citizens to rest easy, as the world at large is
democratically elected and the people have the power. The second is the inclination of global powers to
create “clubs” within which they may include those of a similar government; and, intricately
intertwined, the ability to ostracize those who do not fit in – or are not wanted for whatever reason.
To examine it in more depth, citizens find it easy to rally around an enemy that has opposite
views than they do. The Soviet Union was easy not just to hate, but to pity; their lack of “freedom”
served as a contrast to America’s liberties, and while their leaders could be hated for their crimes
against humanity, their citizens could be used as objects of sorrowful example as to why the Soviets
could not be allowed to “win” the Cold War. Conversely, Average Joes enjoy hearing about and
interacting with other “free” peoples, and having an abundance of peoples to consult with and exchange
goods and services with allows the Average Joes to sleep soundly at night, certain that the prospect of
world peace is indeed real.
Consider the recent struggle over the nation (not state!) of Georgia. Georgia’s initial push to
secure territory angered a neighbor that just happened to be a major world power, thus leading to
Georgia’s territorial integrity being smashed. Georgia’s economic strengths, aspirations to joining NATO,
military infrastructure and – perhaps most devastating of all – its civilian populace have all been
assaulted by the Russian bear and have suffered tremendous damage. The nation itself has been
effectively “set back” for a long time.
On the other side of that coin, Russia may serve as the greatest loser. Political scientists have
already assessed the situation to death, but on the most basic level, our Russian comrades have indeed
shown the world that it is a power “to be reckoned with,” however in doing so it has ruffled the feathers
of the European Union, America, and – perhaps most troublingly – the other former states it fully meant
to intimidate. Ukraine is going to be forced from ambivalence into side-choosing, and many times those
threatened into picking one side over another will often choose against the one who drew the sword of
coercion. NATO membership becomes more than just a far-off thought, as Ukraine could use it to
repulse a future Russian attack, while NATO might consider it simply to serve, ironically, as a buffer state
against Russia.
One of these facets, however, far outweighs the rest when it comes to conquest; the
destruction of infrastructure. In many cases, one neighbor might conquer another in order to obtain a
share of the financial pie which the wealthy resident next door might be having for dinner. That
economic might comes, in today’s internet-laden, urbanized world, in the form of elaborate factories
and complicated architecture. In order to produce, distribute, and profit from an iPod, a certain amount
of money must be invested in machinery, supply networks, and shelf space. Warfare is never going to
capture all three of these things intact; factories are destroyed, roads are bombed, and stores (not to
mention their patrons) are closed. For this reason, a war of conquest in a so-called first-world region
such as Western Europe is all but unthinkable. A military conquest of America would destroy perhaps
the largest incentive to take it over – its economic might.
On the other hand, there are plenty of other reasons why a leader might require a war of
conquest; food and water being the first and foremost. Simply put, the needs of a leader’s nation must
be met, and if a neighbor happens to have far more food available, well, trade might not always work.
Force of arms, on the other hand, provides a two-fold solution – If the leader’s army is victorious, than
his people will be fed! If, on the other hand, it fails, then the population as a whole has less mouths to
feed, and thus there is less pressure on a leader to provide food he doesn’t have.
Unfortunately, the world is not a vaccum, and as one might imagine the natural resources of the
world are much envied. Invasion as an expansion tactic will draw international ire and, eventually, lead
to repercussions so severe that the Average Joes decide that he is a danger to their very safety. Only the
most adept of truth-twisters, such as Adolf Hitler, could inspire a nation almost to the point of
committing suicide with him. Do we discard the military as a means for expansion? Absolutely not! It
simply becomes the lead punch to a campaign of growth, rather than the knock-out blow.
Consider; instead of the role of invader, the leader’s military serves as the defender of another
nation. Not necessarily a “world police force,” but certainly a “helping hand” to those in need of
defense. A well executed, well regulated campaign not directed to conquer a neighbor’s land but to
defend it will lead to that neighbor’s appreciation. Trade deals are far easier to negotiate with a partner
that knows you will defend their assets with military might in the event of an attack. These deals,
tentative at first, lead to the entangling of two nations and, with time, the eventual marriage of them.
The European Union is in many ways a conquest of many parties against many – all without shots being
fired. Certain nations have obtained economic benefit, others have obtained a greater geopolitical
importance, and still others have simply obtained friends on whom they may depend – all without firing
a shot. In time, the European Union might develop into a single country under a single talented leader,
one with an impressive amount of power on the world stage – exactly what this book is about.
Of course, there will still be disputes which cannot be so easily rationalized into “good” or “evil.”
There will be perfectly valid arguments from opposing nations as to why the leader’s nation is wrong to
contribute troops to a cause. One man’s hero is another’s villain, and the late George Carlin was
perfectly accurate in saying that one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist. Military force, even
applied for reasons that the leader and his citizens, not to mention the vast majority of the world, can
still attract problems without the sword’s only weakness; the pen.
The leader must ensure that diplomacy, not destruction, is the key underpinning of his foreign
policy when it comes to military force. A small nation might ask the leader to contribute troops to a
“security force,” but if that small nation’s president is little more than a tyrant abusing his citizens, there
is ample license for the leader to tailor make the terms of his armies’ stay in the tiny nation. For
example, if the leader’s troops are to take part in a conflict, the leader may demand that the tyrannical
president have sit-down meetings with his opponents. Another possibility is that the leader’s security
forces may be able to accompany their allies on missions, ensuring that no human rights abuses occur
and therefore furthering the prestige of the leader’s nation while simultaneously enhancing his allies’
stance to the world theatre.
Every case of warfare, from the casus belli of a populace to the battlefield activities of the
soldiers, will be strictly different and will present unique opportunities as well as pitfalls. Entering
combat is something that can never be done lightly, for a nation can rebel if its army – its children - is
misused. Above all other considerations, a leader must recall two infamous questions: First, the old
“how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake,” as issued by John Kerry, but the
second…”How do you ask a man to be the first to die for a cause?”
Section Three: Threats To A Leader
Every leader will come face to face with threats to his rule. Not all of those threats can be
anticipated, but the majority of them will fall into one of five categories.
Chapter Eleven: Arrogance
This is perhaps the worst flaw a leader may face, for it truly comes from within him. In order to
run a country, in order to organize a government, one must have a great deal of self-confidence and will
have acquaintances constantly parroting how amazing he is. Imagine it; the President of the United
States walking down a hallway, secret service all around, cameras behind that, cheering (hopefully not
booing!) fans all around! How can a person not consider themselves to be something special and
someone unique?
The answer is – the leader isn’t. Admittedly, he is likely to be smarter than most people, and he
wields incredible power. A single adversary is no match for him – in theory, murder is not outside of a
leader’s reach as his police officers can easily forge evidence against an individual threat. With the
majority of the citizenry behind him, a leader can avert bloodshed and simply shame a rival into
submission. So, what makes him as mundane as the Average Joe?
Because everything that is given can be take away, and with one false step the “hero” becomes
the “villain” and is lucky to escape his former country alive. Take for example the case of Antony; a
victorious leader who very well could have established himself as the first Roman Emperor, yet fell to
distraction and pride. Consider the dreadful mistakes made by Adolf Hitler in overestimating his skill as
a military commander; overriding one’s top generals tends to lead to a negative outcome. History is rife
with examples of leaders who erred grievously due to hubris; Nero playing a fiddle while his capital
burned to the ground is only another of the myriad of cases one could study. Instead of delving into
these thousands of prior failures, perhaps it’s better to focus on the inherent drawbacks in arrogance
itself.
First and most insidiously, those who are arrogant often fail to realize it until it is too late. One
man’s self-confident politician is another’s self-centered fool; as aforementioned, media pressure only
adds to one’s bearing and therefore one’s risk of ignoring the proverbial house of cards that has become
his ego. With the ability to write laws comes the convincing notion that one can evade them, as well;
and will certainly be able to escape any traps they might pose. Bear witness to Charles Rangel, the New
York Congressman who helped write the tax codes the U.S. abides by; yet managed to bungle his tax
filings. It matters little whether this was an honest mistake or an attempt to buck the system, but such
errors can bring the media – mentioned earlier as a necessary ally for any leader – into position to
deliver a fatal blow. At this point, there is no recovery.
The second reason why arrogance is so devastating a risk is not so much its ability to instantly
undermine a leader’s authority so much as its penchant for slowly eroding a leader’s advisors. The
problem of a rebellious subordinate will be dealt with in greater detail, naturally, but arrogance is one
means by which a leader may find his staunchest supporters coming apart at the seams. The mere
appearance of such overwhelming images of pride may in fact serve as a leader’s downfall with little
substantial evidence; Julius Caesar, who had argued time and again against his presumed intention to be
coroneted as the King of Rome, led to the demise of Rome’s leader and, with it, the tenuous peace it
had grasped after the First Triumvirate. More evident displays of this particular deadly sin can end with
similar results. Picture instead of Caesar the infamous junior high school bully who bludgeons those
smaller than him on a daily basis: Oafish, perhaps pimpled, and certainly unlikely to remain the biggest
and most irresistible brawler on the playground. As time goes on, less people cheer him on and more
rise against him; the former champion is dragged down and forced to change to survive.
If these reasons aren’t enough, when the arrogance becomes endemic and advisors begin to
compete in order to flatter and appeal to the leader’s strengths in order to gain access to his ear,
government collapses. This nightmarish régime takes the schoolyard bully analogy to an entirely
traumatic level: instead of being deposed, he consolidates power and every person who wishes to buy
lunch or sit at a table must first ask his permission. In order to obtain that golden lunch tray, however,
an advisor must give the bully a cut of his lunch money, or is forced to pummel the bully’s favorite
victim. Having to cowtow in order to gain a hearing with a leader quickly alienates a number of advisors
and would-be allies, leaving power in the hands of the leader’s chosen clique. Is it any wonder that
internal conflicts would arise in such a governing body, and that effective legislation could never be
enacted? Such pathologically fatal political farces are far more devastating than simple alienation of an
advisor or two – entire political parties form from parent groups as a result of such hubris, rather than
isolated resignations or betrayals.
Overreaching one’s abilities is bad; an irrational correlation between your skill and your selfimage can be a mild nuisance or an incapacitating weakness, depending on how ingrained you let it
become. Letting your pride cause rifts between you and your colleagues is difficult to endure, but
inevitable at times; rebels will always exist. Allowing hubris to overtake you, forcing subjects to offer
tributes (or, in conventional terms, adhering to lobbyists) in order for you to consider their issues at any
given time – that is fatal.
So…How do you avoid being swamped in stubborn pride? The answer is surprisingly simple –
retain a touch of common sense. Leaders are by nature political figures, but that does not mean they
may not have friends, family, or fun. Running a country, running the world; difficult tasks, indeed! Yet,
is it too much to ask for a half hour of television time a night, provided there is no crisis in place?
Enjoyment of something lighthearted, something without a serious beat upon it, does not detract from a
leader’s capability to govern. Tuning in to a televised comedian, be it something as “safe” as a late night
TV talk show to a risqué, even raucous commentator (similar to George Carlin, for example!) can tune
the leader in to how some people view the current affairs of his rule. Simple monologues and cliché but
contextually sound jokes may occasionally embarrass the leader; but, if he can brush off the blush and
smile through the slime, coming out on top to laugh and ensure that his policies reflect the peoples’
preference, he will prosper.
Of course, for a naturally-arrogant leader, it may seem like an unnecessary concession to
descend to such levels. As one can see on late night talk shows, a dose of humiliation can often be
damaging to one’s psyche, not to mention one’s political aspirations. The wrong response to a factoid,
or – heaven help you – the snubbing off a proud anchorman can lead to a character assassination taking
place on national television. The obvious question is “why bother?” The similarly obvious answer is that
one has to protect their political positioning from attack, and the best way to do that is to create false
vulnerabilities. Barack Obama, in the face of a sea of red-herring questions about his origins, simply
joked that he was from the Planet Krypton; John McCain redeemed himself for his indirect insult to
David Letterman by appearing on his show and confessing that he’d “screwed up.” While it may have
been too late to change his face, McCain’s lighthearted nature showed the man that could have run for
office, instead of the man that did – Obama’s, on the other hand, reflected the cool-under-pressure
attitude he’d become famous for, and helped defray questions that may have kept some people from
voting for him.