[[WMG:Real-World Influences]]
The idea of a military dictatorship is old, perhaps surprisingly so. In fact, the very term "dictator" stems from an office that existed in UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic. While it was originally a temporary position only used [[EmergencyAuthority in times of great crisis]], Sulla re-established the office and made it [[PresidentForLife a lifetime position]] late in the Republic's life, resulting in the word gaining its current connotations. In Feudal Japan, meanwhile, political power became concentrated in a military leader known as the ''shogun'', with the Emperor reduced to a figurehead whose powers and duties were mostly ceremonial in nature. In the aftermath of the UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar and the abolition of the monarchy, UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell seized power from Parliament and took the office of "Lord Protector", a position that was briefly [[HereditaryRepublic inherited by his son Richard]] before the monarchy was restored.\\
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However, it was in the 19th century that the trope as we know it began to emerge, and it took shape in Latin America during and after the various wars of independence. While certain Haitian revolutionary leaders had elements of it, it was in the Spanish colonies of Central and South America that examples of the first men who truly fit this trope appeared: ones who, more often than not, held the at least ''de facto'' title of ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudillo caudillo]]''.\\
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While there are historians who believe that early examples of ''caudillos'' can be found in the conquistadores who conquered vast tracts of the New World in the name of the Spanish crown, or even as far back as the military leaders who fought the Moors during the Reconquista, they first took on a recognizable form during and after the Spanish American wars of independence. Against the backdrop of these wars, when violence and turmoil spread like wildfire and were stubbornly persistent, military strongmen could impose order and protect the people. Many of these men were able to gain huge amounts of power, both during the wars and their aftermath. Unlike the United States, Spanish America had no real tradition of democratic government; unlike with Brazil, state institutions in these former colonies were effectively destroyed, which meant a lack of continuity of government. As a result, a successful ''caudillo'' was frequently able to essentially build his own government from scratch. This was a major departure from previous examples of military rule, where there was generally at least the pretext of respect for established and accepted norms, often with "civilian" (for lack of a better term) officials able to keep their positions. The early 19th century in Latin America is frequently called the "Age of Caudillos", and rule by the ''caudillo'' (known as ''caudillismo'') continued into the 20th century. Even after the age of the old-school ''caudillos'' came to an end, Latin American countries (even non-Hispanophone ones) were frequently under the control of military governments.\\
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The TropeCodifier is likely [[UsefulNotes/DominicanRepublic Rafael Trujillo]], who had the chest of medals, megalomania, {{Egopolis}}, brutality, corruption and Caribbean island to match; he was and is still considered one of the cruelest and most outright tyrannical of all ''caudillos'' for his fascistic ruling style, and even funded terrorist activities in neighboring nations, namely trying to kill the president of Venezuela and even targeting the United States[[note]]Where a Dominican exile and U.S. citizen named Jesus Galindez was kidnapped in broad daylight and killed by Trujillo's secret police, the infamous SIM (''Servicio de Inteligencia Militar''), operating in ''New York City''[[/note]]. His image as this was cemented once and for all in ''Literature/TheFeastOfTheGoat'' and ''Literature/InTheTimeOfTheButterflies''.\\
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Aside from Trujillo, common inspirations include UsefulNotes/FidelCastro[[note]]The TropeMaker for the guerrilla subplot and who likely inspired the WindbagPolitician part of this trope, being one himself[[/note]], UsefulNotes/FulgencioBatista, [[UsefulNotes/{{Grenada}} Hudson Austin]], UsefulNotes/JuanDomingoPeron, [[UsefulNotes/{{Argentina}} Juan Manuel de Rosas]], UsefulNotes/AugustoPinochet, [[UsefulNotes/{{Paraguay}} Francisco Solano Lopez, Alfredo Stroessner]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Peru}} Juan Velasco Alvarado]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}} Antonio López de Santa Anna]], [[UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution Porfirio Diaz, Victoriano Huerta]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Haiti}} Paul Magloire]], [[UsefulNotes/ElSalvador Maximiliano Hernández Martínez]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Nicaragua}} the Somoza dynasty]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Honduras}} Jorge Ubico Castenada]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Panama}} Manuel Noriega]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Suriname}} Dési Bouterse]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Venezuela}} Juan Vicente Gomez, Marcos Perez Jimenez]], and UsefulNotes/HugoChavez. The many generals that led the [[UsefulNotes/NationalReorganizationProcess Argentine]] and [[UsefulNotes/BrazilianMilitaryRegime Brazilian]] military regimes are also favorites.\\
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While traditionally Latin American, this type of villain can be based around any nation, particularly those of various developing and/or third-world regions across the globe. This trope is often used to make an {{Anvilicious}} point about [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical said real-life dictator's policies]].\\
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The Middle East and North Africa is another favourite location in fiction for these types of rulers to thrive, especially in more contemporary works set after UsefulNotes/TheGulfWar or during UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror. Dictators such as these used to be contrasted with more traditional MENA governments, but now they're more likely to be contrasted with [[TheFundamentalist radical Islamists]]. The most popular are UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein for the Middle East and UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi for North Africa (even after their deaths), but other objects of satire are Hafez and UsefulNotes/BasharAlAssad, [[UsefulNotes/{{Yemen}} Ali Abdullah Saleh]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Iraq}} Abd al-Karim Qasim]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Sudan}} Omar al-Bashir]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Algeria}} Houari Boumédiène]] and [[UsefulNotes/ModernEgypt Hosni Mubarak]].\\
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If East or Southeast Asian, expect them to be an {{Expy}} of [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors Yuan Shikai]], UsefulNotes/ChiangKaiShek, UsefulNotes/HidekiTojo, [[UsefulNotes/{{Mongolia}} Khorloogiin Choibalsan]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}} Suharto]], UsefulNotes/FerdinandMarcos, [[UsefulNotes/SouthKorea Park Chung-hee (and his successor Chun Doo-hwan)]][[note]]Who ''are'' this trope in South Korean media even today[[/note]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Cambodia}} Lon Nol, Hun Sen]], [[UsefulNotes/ThatSouthEastAsianCountry Ne Win, Than Shwe]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Laos}} Souphanouvong, Phoumi Nosavan]] or [[UsefulNotes/{{Thailand}} Plaek Phibunsongkhram]]. But the most popular examples by far are naturally UsefulNotes/TheRulersOfNorthKorea.\\
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If European, one can usually expect them to be based on fascist dictators such as UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini, [[UsefulNotes/{{Croatia}} Ante Pavelić]], and [[UsefulNotes/{{Austria}} Engelbert Dollfuss]]; or communists, such as UsefulNotes/LeonidBrezhnev, [[UsefulNotes/{{Romania}} Nicolae Ceausescu]] and UsefulNotes/JosipBrozTito if Eastern. Other prototypes include UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco[[note]]Who gave himself the official title of caudillo[[/note]], UsefulNotes/AntonioDeOliveiraSalazar[[note]]Who started off as part of a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditadura_Nacional military junta]] that he later succeeded[[/note]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Greece}} Ioannis Metaxas, Georgios Papadopoulos]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Hungary}} Miklós Horthy]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Romania}} Ion Antonescu]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Belarus}} Alexander Lukashenko]], [[UsefulNotes/TheChechnyaWars Ramzan Kadyrov (and his father Akhmad)]], and UsefulNotes/SlobodanMilosevic. Mussolini and Franco were popular inspirations for this trope during their lifetime and for some time after they died, but Milosevic and Lukashenko have replaced them in pop culture for the 21st century.\\
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Sub-Saharan Africa is another common location. Usually, generalissimos from this region are based on UsefulNotes/IdiAmin and [[UsefulNotes/{{Liberia}} Charles Taylor]]. Amin embodied the thuggish and arrogant military officer that was common during the Cold War, but has been overtaken in popularity by the present day by Taylor, who embodied the stereotypical [[AfricanTerrorists African warlord]] that has become the face of this trope for African settings. Other examples are [[UsefulNotes/{{Somalia}} Siad Barre]], [[UsefulNotes/DemocraticRepublicOfTheCongo Mobutu Sese Seko, Laurent-Desire Kabila]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Rwanda}} Juvénal Habyarimana]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Nigeria}} Yakubu Gowon, Sani Abacha]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Togo}} Gnassingbé Eyadéma]], [[UsefulNotes/BurkinaFaso Thomas Sankara, Blaise Compaoré]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Liberia}} Samuel Doe]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Niger}} Seyni Kountché]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Mali}} Moussa Traoré]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Zimbabwe}} Robert Mugabe]], [[UsefulNotes/CentralAfricanRepublic Jean-Bedel Bokassa]], [[UsefulNotes/EquatorialGuinea Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Uganda}} Yoweri Museveni]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Ethiopia}} Mengistu Haile Mariam]], and [[UsefulNotes/{{Chad}} Hissene Habre]]. Since postcolonial Africa is infamously unstable, examples of this type frequently come to power by staging a MilitaryCoup or winning a CivilWar, but ones who take over through less overtly violent means are also fairly common.\\
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There are also somewhat less popular areas a Generalissimo can hail from. These include (among others) Central Asia (influences: [[UsefulNotes/{{Kazakhstan}} Nursultan Nazarbayev]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Uzbekistan}} Islam Karimov]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Turkmenistan}} Saparmurat Niyazov, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow]] and [[UsefulNotes/{{Kyrgyzstan}} Askar Akayev]]), South Asia (influences: [[UsefulNotes/{{Pakistan}} Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Pervez Musharraf]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Bangladesh}} Ziaur Rahman, Hussain Muhammad Ershad]] and [[UsefulNotes/{{Afghanistan}} Mohammad Daoud Khan]]) and Oceania (frequently influenced by [[UsefulNotes/{{Fiji}} Sitiveni Rabuka]])\\
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While never an actual head of state, UsefulNotes/CheGuevara is sometimes parodied in such a manner as well, as is fellow beret-wearing rebel [[UsefulNotes/{{Angola}} Jonas Savimbi]], although Savimbi was an anti-communist and the polar opposite of Che politically. There are also other people who were never officially a head of state or head of government, but still get depicted in this light and have had some influence on various forms of the trope. These include [[UsefulNotes/{{Afghanistan}} Abdul Rashid Dostum]], [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober Alexander Kolchak, Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}} Symon Petliura]], UsefulNotes/RomanVonUngernSternberg, [[UsefulNotes/NoMoreEmperors Zhang Zuolin (and his son Zhang Xueliang and his subordinate Zhang Zongchang)]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Liberia}} Prince Johnson, Joshua Milton Blahyi]] and [[UsefulNotes/{{Uganda}} Joseph Kony]].\\
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[[GodwinsLaw Surprisingly]], UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler is rarely parodied in this manner, perhaps because he himself is enough of an acceptable target (although one of his henchmen, Hermann Goering, did famously dress this way). UsefulNotes/JosephStalin is sometimes parodied in this way and has influenced the communist variant of this trope, but, like Hitler, he is uniquely infamous enough to represent a specific archetype of his own. Like Stalin, UsefulNotes/MaoZedong sometimes gets parodied like this and has influenced fictional examples (especially East Asian communist ones), but also like Stalin, he's iconic enough to be a stand-alone archetype. [[UsefulNotes/{{Cambodia}} Pol Pot]] gets this treatment on occasion, but fictional portrayals are more likely to focus on the sheer madness and depravity of his rule. In the Middle East, [[UsefulNotes/{{Iran}} Ayatollah Khomeini and his successor Khameini]] are frequently parodied in a similar manner to this trope, but often combined with TheTheocracy, CorruptChurch, or MiddleEasternTerrorists. UsefulNotes/GamalAbdelNasser has influenced the MENA variant of this trope, but he himself is generally not portrayed as being like this; instead, he's often portrayed as a ''positive'' example of an Arab military leader compared to Gaddafi, who styled himself during his lifetime as the heir to Nasser's legacy. Likewise, [[UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} Józef Piłsudski]] styled himself in a manner similar to this trope and has influenced some takes on the European variant, but he's generally depicted in a more positive and respectable light than the archetype. Those rare military dictators who [[{{Cincinnatus}} voluntarily give up their power]] (such as [[UsefulNotes/{{Turkey}} Mustafa Kemal Atatürk]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Nigeria}} Olusegun Obasanjo]], UsefulNotes/SimonBolivar, and [[UsefulNotes/{{Ghana}} Jerry Rawlings]]) are, as a general rule of thumb, unlikely to be portrayed in this light.