In conducting a coup in an impoverished undeveloped nation there is a basic to-do list. You capture the presidency, the courts, take over the international airport, emasculate the legislature, decapitate the military of potential opponents, storm the local TV station and declare a new dawn.
Bigger countries require more effort, like the mass mobilization of xenophobia through false-flag attacks and terror scares, but from Moscow to Monrovia, the patterns are the same – an autocrat takes power in the name of national salvation.
