The grand strategy of the United States under the 44th president

[Sigaba]

This thread is in partial response to nmap's question posed below.

Originally Posted by nmap

Another little leaf in the wind - isn't it interesting that even though gasoline prices are low, we're seeing more and more emphasis on fuel economy? And local leaders are urging the use of public transportation and car pooling? Isn't it fascinating that we're seeing discussion of the electrical grid becoming a so-called smart grid in order to reduce fuel usage? I wonder - is this to reduce carbon emissions, or do they know that future fuel availability will decline?

After several months of intermittent thought, here's are my two cents on what the president has in mind for the United States.

First, by 'grand strategy' I am using the definition offered by E.M. Earle more than sixty five years ago.

The highest type of strategy--sometimes called grand strategy--is that which so integrates the polices and armaments of the nation that the resort to war is either rendered unnecessary or is undertaken with the maximum chance of victory.*

More recently, Paul Kennedy, informed by Liddell-Hart, broke down the elements of grand strategy into a "whole number of factors" and summarized in three interrelated areas.

1. The use of natural resources to balance ends and means.
2. The use of diplomacy in both peace and war to maximize the nation's standing relative to its allies, enemies, and neutral powers.
3. Maximizing national morale and levering a nation's political culture to secure a population's support for a government's policies.** This post centers around this third component.

For reasons outlined here, I'm very wary of Liddell-Hart. So while Kennedy's areas are useful for this discussion, I am using them provisionally.

Here, a brief review of the U.S.'s grand strategy since the end of World War II is in order. This discussion answers a mentor's favorite question: "SO WHAT?"

Since World War II, America has relied on the Mackinder-Spykman thesis.*** This thesis holds that there are five geographic heartlands (the U.S., Great Britain, the Rhine Valley, Russia, and Japan) “where the sinews of modern military strength could be produced in quantity.”**** Since the conclusion of the Second World War, the heated (and sometimes bitter) debates in American political and strategic cultures were about how to maintain the West's control over three of those heartlands, to neutralize a fourth, and to contain the fifth. Mackinder-Spykman is the foundation of American globalism and a key reason why there has not been a third world war among modern nations.

The events of 11 September 2001 challenged the relevance of MacKinder-Spykman against enemies that managed to combine the worst aspects of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern life. (This last aspect has not received the public attention it merits.)

In the months leading up to his 2002 state of the union address, I wondered if President Bush would shelve MacKinder-Spykman in favor of an unusual blend of Wintrhop and Machiavelli, and thus satisfy his most venomous critics' garbled ranting by living up to the fantasy that he was a unique combination of evil mastermind, religious zealot, and corporate thrall.

Specifically, I wondered if Bush might do what I think the current president is doing: reviving the concept of Fortress America.

To be clear, had Bush the Younger pursued this path, it would have been for different--read, better--reasons. I'm fundamentally opposed to the concept of Fortress America but I think a Republican version would protect the homeland, remain an efficacious pluralistic society with a diverse culture, fulfill its international commitments, and stand as a bulwark against tyranny.

In my view, this president's version of Fortress America will be noteworthy only because there will be free 4G wireless for everyone, a Starbucks on every corner, and maybe The New Yorker will have an opportunity to get off its high horse and return to publishing a magazine worth the paper its printed on. (I'm not holding my breath. Nor am I renewing my subscription.)

This iteration of Fortress America is going to look like an eco-friendly City on a Hill but without the concepts of either American Exceptionalism or Christian sensibilities. (I'll be blunt. When the president talks about America's greatness, his words sound hollow in my ears.) Mackinder-Spykman will be consigned to oblivion.

I have outlined the political component of this concept here. To this thumbnail, I would add an component that is in respectful disagreement with the interpretation that the president is a socialist. It is my view that the president should be taken for his word when he said.

So we have a choice to make. We can remain one of the world's leading importers of foreign oil, or we can make the investments that would allow us to become the world's leading exporter of renewable energy. We can let climate change continue to go unchecked, or we can help stop it. We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad, or we can create those jobs right here in America and lay the foundation for lasting prosperity. [Source is here.]

IMHO, he's going to shift the trajectory of free enterprise in America to benefit "green collar" industries (the list of products will include LEED certified buildings, hybrid cars, OLED displays, and, my favorite, devices that are digitally convergent). These industries will be shepherded by government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels much the way America in the past encouraged (through various subsidies) the automobile industry (among others). The Americans working in these industries will be a cross section of entrepreneurs, middle class professionals (such as engineers and urban planners), and the working classes (including the Reagan Democrats).

He envisions a level of prosperity that is high enough (and 'sustainable') that the upper echelons of his economic coalition will not mind paying higher taxes for the 'public good.' (There are Americans who make six figure salaries who were opposed to Bush's tax cuts.) The working classes will have stable jobs because they will be based on American technological innovations.^ Members of this coalition will not mind taking public transit (the parking is going to suck), living in close proximity, rubbing elbows, and shooting the breeze.

In this big Green City of Joy, assimilation won't be futile, it won't be necessary.

With this third leg of the stool (pun unintended) established, the president will have widespread public approval to pursue other, more controversial, policy goals in support of America's grand strategy.

As one of the objectives of this grand strategy is to make the world safe for America by making America safe for the world, the president will attempt to leverage his successes at home to establish a permanent Democratic majority. (The Democrats may have treated Karl Rove with contempt publicly but I have no doubt that they also took careful notes of everything he said.)

Concurrently, the president will continue to 'restore America's standing in the world' and to defeat the terrorist threat through his immeasurable personal charm (a la Franklin Roosevelt).

In contrast to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal coalition, this president will be less inclined to bring more people into the big tent. He won't need to.

For those of us who are comfortable with this vision, we are going to get dinged bit by bit. But not by the federal government. Instead, the mechanism will be local governments. Even if these governments are controlled by right of center politicians, they will be staffed by professionals and bureaucrats who will bring a 'me too' frame of mind when writing municipal and building codes. The traditional Republican complaint about a bloated federal government is going to be undermined by the fact that local governments will be instituting these policies.
_____________________________
*Edward Mead Earle, introduction to Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler, ed. E.M. Earle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943), p. viii.
**Paul Kennedy, introduction to Grand Strategies in War and Peace, ed. P.M. Kennedy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 2-5.
***The thesis was originally promulgated by Halford Mackinder’s “The Geopolitical Pivot in History” (1904), supplemented by Thomas Spykman’s America’s Strategy in World Politics (1942), and popularized by Walter Lippmann’s U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (1943). See John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 22-23. See also Gaddis’s Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 57.
**** John Lewis Gaddis, “The Cold War: Some Lessons for Policy Makers” Naval War College Review 27:3 (November-December 1974), pp. 2-16.
^ If there's a lesson of the e-economy--other than 'where there's smoke, there are mirrors'--it is that 'first to market' yields a huge competitive advantage. Missing from this calculation is that this advantage is undermined by theft. The president wants to 'restore' America's standing in the world but he forgets that foreign nationals have been hacking our systems, stealing our content, and producing unlicensed counterfeit knock-offs since Al Gore invented the internet.

[Richard]

Sigaba - can't fool you. However, I have to wonder at what point his strategic vision will become so transparent it will galvanize the collective will of America to lash back in a historical fashion - MOO but I'm not so sure it's quite a done deal...yet. I think you've hit Paragraph 3 of O-bee's OpOrder - I'm hoping he's underestimated Paragraph 1a and it's greater than he thinks, and that the assumptions he used for his OpPlans are flawed.

Here's what Mark Steyn thinks of it all:

The Intrusion of Reality
The Left understands that the character of a people can be transformed.
Mark Steyn, NRO, 2 May 2009

We’re still in the first 100 days of the joyous observances of Barack Obama’s first 100 days, and many weeks of celebration lie ahead, so here are my thoughts:

President Obama’s strongest talent is not his speechifying, which is frankly a bit of a snoozeroo. In Europe, he left ‘em wanting less pretty much every time (headline from Britain’s Daily Telegraph: “Barack Obama really does go on a bit”). That uptilted chin combined with the left-right teleprompter neck swivel you can set your watch by makes him look like an emaciated Mussolini umpiring an endless rally of high lobs on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Each to his own, but I don’t think those who routinely hail him as the greatest orator since Socrates actually sit through many of his speeches.

On the other hand, if you just caught a couple of minutes of last Wednesday’s press conference, you’d be impressed. When that groupie from the New York Times asked the president about what, during his first hundred days, “had surprised you the most . . . enchanted you the most . . . humbled you the most and troubled you the most,” Obama made a point of getting out his pen, writing it down and repeating back the multiple categories: “Enchanted,” he said. “Nice.” Indeed. Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger, you may see a stranger across a crowded room, but then he scribbles down your multi-part question to be sure he gets it right, and he looks so thoughtful, and suddenly he’s not a stranger anymore, and the sound of his laughter will ring in your dreams.

The theater of thoughtfulness is critical to the president’s success. He has the knack of appearing moderate while acting radical, which is a lethal skill. The thoughtful look suckered many of my more impressionable conservative comrades last fall, when David Brooks and Christopher Buckley were cranking out gushing paeans to Obama’s “first-class temperament” — temperament being to the Obamacons what Nick Jonas’s hair is to a Tiger Beat reporter. But the drab reality is that the man they hail — Brooks & Buckley, I mean; not the Tiger Beat crowd — is a fantasy projection. There is no Obama The Sober Centrist, although it might make a good holiday song:

“Obama The Sober Centrist
Had a very thoughtful mien
And if you ever saw it
You would say it’s peachy keen . . . ”

And it is. But underneath the thoughtful look is a transformative domestic agenda that represents a huge annexation of American life by an ever-more intrusive federal government. One cannot but admire the singleminded ruthlessness with which Obama is getting on with it, even as he hones his contemplative, unhurried, moderate routine on primetime press conferences. On foreign affairs, the shtick is less effective, but mainly because he’s not so engaged by the issues: He’s got big plans for health care, and federalized education, and an eco-friendly government-run automobile industry — and Iran’s nuclear program just gets in the way. He’d rather not think about it, and his multicontinental apology tours are his way of kicking the can down the road until that blessed day when America is just another sclerotic Euro-style social democracy and even your more excitable jihadi won’t be able to jump up and down chanting, “Death to the Great Satan!” with a straight face.

It would seem to me that reality is more likely to intrude on the Obama project from overseas than domestically. But if he’s lucky it won’t intrude at all, not until it’s too late. Thirty years ago this month, a grocer’s daughter from the English Midlands became Britain’s female prime minister — not because the electorate was interested in making (Obama-style) history, but just because nothing worked anymore. The post-1945 socialist settlement — government health care, government automobile industry, government everything — had broken down: Inflation over 25 percent, marginal taxes rates over 90 percent, mass unemployment, permanent strikes. The country’s union leaders were household names, mainly because they were responsible for everything your household lacked. Even moving around was hard: The nationalized rail network was invariably on strike, and you had to put your name on a waiting list months in advance for one of the “new” car models. The evening news was an endless parade of big, beefy, burly blokes picketing some plant for the right to continue enjoying the soft, pampering workweek of the more effete Ottoman sultans.

Margaret Thatcher was a great leader, who reversed her country’s decline — to the point where, two decades later, the electorate felt it was safe to vote the Labour party back into office. And yet, in the greater scheme of things, the Thatcher interlude seems just that: a temporary respite from a remorseless descent into the abyss. In its boundless ambition, the Left understands that the character of a people can be transformed: British, Canadian, and European elections are now about which party can deliver “better services,” as if the nation is a hotel and the government could use some spritelier bellhops. Socialized health care in particular changes the nature of the relationship between citizen and state into something closer to junkie and pusher. On one of the many Obama websites the national impresario feels the need to maintain — “Foundation for Change” — the president is certainly laying the foundation for something. Among the many subjects expressing their gratitude to Good King Barack the Hopeychanger is “Phil from Cathedral City, Ca”:

I was laid off in mid-January from a job I had for 12 years. It’s really getting hard to make ends meet, but this month I got some great news. This week I received in the mail official notification that my COBRA monthly payments for medical, dental and vision insurance will decrease from $468 to only $163, all due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This is a $305 in savings a month!

I can’t tell you how much of a weight off my shoulders this is. I am living proof of how the President’s bold initiatives are beginning to work!

But just exactly how do these “bold initiatives” work? Well, hey, simple folk like you and I and Phil from Cathedral City don’t need to worry about the details. Once these “bold initiatives” really hit their stride maybe the cost of everything over 400 bucks can be brought down to $163. Wouldn’t that be great?

The problem in the Western world is that governments are spending money faster than their citizenry or economies can generate it. As Gerald Ford liked to say, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” And that’s true. But there’s an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give Phil from Cathedral City everything he wants isn’t big enough to get Phil to give any of it back. That’s the stage the Europeans are at: Their electorates are hooked on unsustainable levels of “services,” but no longer can conceive of life without them.

Margaret Thatcher has a terrific line: “The facts of life are conservative.” Just so. Alas, while the facts are conservative, everything else — the culture, the media, the institutions in which we educate our children, the language of public discourse, the societal air we breathe — is profoundly liberal. Phil is “living proof” of something, but it’s not good news for conservatives.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...QwODNmOGE2OTk=

Richard's $.02

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Richard

...I have to wonder at what point his strategic vision will become so transparent it will galvanize the collective will of America to lash back in a historical fashion - MOO but I'm not so sure it's quite a done deal...yet.

I think what may happen is that the president will benefit from hiding his agenda in plain sight. He can accomplish this goal by alternately expanding, changing, rephrasing, and simplifying the terms of the debate.

The article below illustrates my point. Environmentalists generally cast themselves in opposition to corporate America yet ecoAmerica is basically doing research that will benefit corporate America sell green products.

Source is here.

May 2, 2009
Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus
By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON — The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”

The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

EcoAmerica has been conducting research for the last several years to find new ways to frame environmental issues and so build public support for climate change legislation and other initiatives. A summary of the group’s latest findings and recommendations was accidentally sent by e-mail to a number of news organizations by someone who sat in this week on a briefing intended for government officials and environmental leaders.

Asked about the summary, ecoAmerica’s president and founder, Robert M. Perkowitz, requested that it not be reported until the formal release of the firm’s full paper later this month, but acknowledged that its wide distribution now made compliance with his request unlikely.

The research directly parallels marketing studies conducted by oil companies, utilities and coal mining concerns that are trying to “green” their images with consumers and sway public policy.

Environmental issues consistently rate near the bottom of public worry, according to many public opinion polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in January found global warming last among 20 voter concerns; it trailed issues like addressing moral decline and decreasing the influence of lobbyists. “We know why it’s lowest,” said Mr. Perkowitz, a marketer of outdoor clothing and home furnishings before he started ecoAmerica, whose activities are financed by corporations, foundations and individuals. “When someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues.”

The answer, Mr. Perkowitz said in his presentation at the briefing, is to reframe the issue using different language. “Energy efficiency” makes people think of shivering in the dark. Instead, it is more effective to speak of “saving money for a more prosperous future.” In fact, the group’s surveys and focus groups found, it is time to drop the term “the environment” and talk about “the air we breathe, the water our children drink.”

“Another key finding: remember to speak in TALKING POINTS aspirational language about shared American ideals, like freedom, prosperity, independence and self-sufficiency while avoiding jargon and details about policy, science, economics or technology,” said the e-mail account of the group’s study.

Mr. Perkowitz and allies in the environmental movement have been briefing officials in Congress and the administration in the hope of using the findings to change the terms of the debate now under way in Washington.

Opponents of legislation to combat global warming are engaged in a similar effort. Trying to head off a cap-and-trade system, in which government would cap the amount of heat-trapping emissions allowed and let industry trade permits to emit those gases, they are coaching Republicans to refer to any such system as a giant tax that would kill jobs. Coal companies are taking out full-page advertisements promising “clean, green coal.” The natural gas industry refers to its product as “clean fuel green fuel.” Oil companies advertise their investments in alternative energy.

Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, an expert on environmental communications, said ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. “The form is the same; the message is just flipped,” he said. “You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.”

He said the approach was cynical and, worse, ineffective. “The right uses it, the left uses it, but it doesn’t engage people in a face-to-face manner,” he said, “and that’s the only way to achieve real, lasting social change.”

Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant, prepared a strikingly similar memorandum in 2002, telling his clients that they were losing the environmental debate and advising them to adjust their language. He suggested referring to themselves as “conservationists” rather than “environmentalists,” and emphasizing “common sense” over scientific argument.

And, Mr. Luntz and Mr. Perkowitz agree, “climate change” is an easier sell than “global warming.”

[nmap]

Sigaba, thank you for a fascinating and cogent analysis.

Your views about the development of national policy, and the significance of previous doctrine is illuminating to say the least. As I observe the POTUS, I'm inclined to agree that he is not actually a socialist. Rather, he is a proponent of increased control. Furthermore, he uses the language of socialism both to gain a specific group of supporters and to facilitate his goals of increased governmental control. Parenthetically, I would add that the implementation of controls over carbon emissions strikes me as a remarkably effective way to insinuate government control into essentially every transaction within the society.

I do not doubt the validity of your idea that the POTUS desires prosperity, and will seek to obtain this through promotion of the green collar industries you mention. That said, I have deep reservations about the efficacy of such a transition. People are fond of green technology, but careful analysis of the EROEI (energy return on energy invested) is notably absent. Just as corn ethanol proved to be an ineffective approach to energy independence, due to the adverse energy balance, I suspect attributes of wind and solar power, is well as other alternatives, will likewise prove to be flawed. In the cases of both wind and solar, fluctuating supply necessitates significant storage. Although some proponents of the smart-grid technology suggests that extensive use of plug-in hybrid vehicles will result in the public supplying the needed storage capacity through the batteries of their vehicles, I have a suspicion this represents more of a hope that of a careful analysis.

Unlike the preceding, nuclear power offers the ability to maintain the base supply during all times and conditions. There are those who suggest that the supply of uranium is essentially limitless, and could be efficiently extracted from seawater. On the other hand, nuclear reactors require significant quantities of materials which in turn must be extracted and hence require significant energy investments. However, without an extensive analysis - which I have never seen - my preliminary opinion is that nuclear power is probably the best interim measure to defer significant adverse consequences.

In essence, I agree with your analysis of the grand strategy pursued by the current administration. However, I suspect they will find that their strategy has an internal flaw, and that they cannot accomplish their end goal. Therefore, the question becomes how they will react. I suspect they will pursue greater control, and enforced sacrifice and restrictions. Again, this may feel very much like socialism, with labels that strongly suggest such an affinity. But I agree with you, the POTUS is not really pursuing a socialist agenda. I think he is pursuing control and power, either for himself or more likely for his backers.

[nmap]

Along the lines of control, not socialism - I'd like to offer a couple links for consideration. The first is at TickerForum, written by K. Denninger under his own name.

LINK

It has some comments, especially at the beginning of the piece, that strike me as interesting. Particularly a remark by Senator Durbin to the effect that the banking industry controls our government.

The second item, referenced by the first, I do not know, nor can I vouch for. The unconfirmed material therein may be utter nonsense, as the site itself discloses, or it may have validity. It does provide footnotes and good sources for portions of the material. The writing style is polished - but that doesn't prove anything. That said, the ideas within may be worth considering, if you have some excess time.

The unifying theme of both is a trend toward increased governmental control - but not in the sense of socialism per se. If true, such a trend may be of interest.

LINK

[The Reaper]

I was looking for a better definition of Mr. Obaba and the Dems version of politics that are currently being played, and came up with this. Hard to tell after 100 days, but if the first 100 were any indicator, this may be where we are headed, which will no doubt infuriate liberals to no end.

It may not be pure fascism, as it loooks to me like a blend of multiple systems, leaning heavily on socialism as well, but it provides some startling parallels. As some have claimed, fascism was deliberately ill-defined and nebulous to increase its popularity so that everyman could see himself in it.

Is Mr. Obama channeling Il Duce?

TR

Fascism
by Sheldon Richman

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.(Check.)

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.(Check.)

Fascism is to be distinguished from interventionism, or the mixed economy. Interventionism seeks to guide the market process, not eliminate it, as fascism did. Minimum-wage and antitrust laws, though they regulate the free market, are a far cry from multiyear plans from the Ministry of Economics.(Too early to tell.)

Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms. Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission. Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and “excess” incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or “loans.” The consequent burdening of manufacturers gave advantages to foreign firms wishing to export. But since government policy aimed at autarky, or national self-sufficiency, protectionism was necessary: imports were barred or strictly controlled, leaving foreign conquest as the only avenue for access to resources unavailable domestically. Fascism was thus incompatible with peace and the international division of labor—hallmarks of liberalism.(Check.)

Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography. In this, fascism revealed its roots in syndicalism, a form of socialism originating on the left. The government cartelized firms of the same industry, with representatives of labor and management serving on myriad local, regional, and national boards—subject always to the final authority of the dictator’s economic plan. Corporatism was intended to avert unsettling divisions within the nation, such as lockouts and union strikes. The price of such forced “harmony” was the loss of the ability to bargain and move about freely.(Check.)

To maintain high employment and minimize popular discontent, fascist governments also undertook massive public-works projects financed by steep taxes, borrowing, and fiat money creation. While many of these projects were domestic—roads, buildings, stadiums—the largest project of all was militarism, with huge armies and arms production.(Check.)

The fascist leaders’ antagonism to communism has been misinterpreted as an affinity for capitalism. In fact, fascists’ anticommunism was motivated by a belief that in the collectivist milieu of early-twentieth-century Europe, communism was its closest rival for people’s allegiance. As with communism, under fascism, every citizen was regarded as an employee and tenant of the totalitarian, party-dominated state. Consequently, it was the state’s prerogative to use force, or the threat of it, to suppress even peaceful opposition.(Check.)

continued....

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html