Guardians of power: Special forces that keep autocrats in control
Across continents and decades, these ‘praetorian guards’ have acted as both shield and sword, protecting rulers while enforcing fear. Their names change, their uniforms differ, but their mission remains the same
Authoritarian power rarely survives on charisma or ideology alone. Behind the speeches, portraits and staged mass rallies stand smaller, hidden forces; elite guards and paramilitary units that answer not to constitutions or parliaments, but to one person.
Across continents and decades, these "praetorian guards" have acted as both shield and sword, protecting rulers while enforcing fear. Their names change, their uniforms differ, but their logic remains the same.
In Nazi Germany, that logic found its most infamous expression in the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron), or SS. It began in 1925 as Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard evolved into a sprawling organisation that controlled concentration camps, enforced racial policy and fielded its own elite military combat units under the Waffen-SS.
By 1945, the SS had become a state within the state, thus with Germany's defeat, its end was also absolute. After the end of World War II, the Nuremberg Tribunal declared it a criminal organisation, dismantling it entirely and prosecuting its leadership.
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In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin relied on a bureaucratic terror machine rather than black uniforms and runic symbols. The NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), active as a distinct body between 1934 and 1946, oversaw the Great Purge, managed the Gulag system and carried out mass deportations.
Though formally a ministry, its state security arm operated as Stalin's personal army. Unlike the Nazi SS though, its fate was not abolition but mutation. After Stalin's death, the organisation's chief, Lavrentiy Beria, was executed, and the organisation fractured, eventually giving rise to the KGB.
Elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania perfected surveillance as a form of governance. The Securitate, active from 1948 to 1989, was one of the largest secret police forces in the Eastern Bloc relative to population.
Its dense web of informers reached deep into everyday life, and its loyalty to Ceaușescu was tested during the 1989 revolution. After his execution, the Securitate was dissolved and rebranded into new agencies such as the SRI, though debates over lingering influence continue.
In the Caribbean, repression took a more openly theatrical form.
Haiti's Tonton Macoute, officially known as the Milice de Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale, was named after a folkloric bogeyman. From 1959 to 1986, under François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and later his son Jean-Claude, the force terrorised the population with machetes and total impunity.
When "Baby Doc" fled amid a popular uprising, the group was officially disbanded, though splinter elements later resurfaced as paramilitary gangs.
The IRGC, founded in 1979, remains the most powerful institution in the country. Created to protect the Islamic Revolution, it operates in parallel to the regular army and answers only to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Over decades, the IRGC has grown into a military, political and economic empire, with external operations conducted through its Quds Force.
Africa's other great Cold War strongman, Idi Amin of Uganda, cloaked terror in bureaucratic language. His State Research Bureau, active from 1971 to 1979, operated out of the infamous Nakasero "slaughterhouse" and was responsible for the abduction and murder of thousands. The SRB collapsed when Tanzanian forces and Ugandan exiles captured Kampala, forcing Amin into exile and dismantling the organisation.
In the Middle East, Saddam Hussein's Iraq maintained overlapping layers of loyalty.
The Republican Guard, active from 1969 to 2003, was an elite, well-equipped force designed to deter coups. Alongside it operated the Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary group notorious for brutal internal enforcement.
Both were dissolved after the US-led invasion in 2003, though many former members later appeared in insurgent movements, a reminder that dismantling such forces rarely erases their social footprint.
Libya under Muammar Gaddafi offered a more unusual image of regime protection. His Amazonian Guard, active from the early 1980s until 2011, was an all-female bodyguard unit hand-picked and trained in martial arts and firearms.
They served not only as security but as political theatre, embodying Gaddafi's idiosyncratic vision. The unit collapsed during the civil war; some members were reportedly abused or killed, others disappeared into exile, later claiming coercion.
But some praetorian forces still persist.
In Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), founded in 1979, remains the most powerful institution in the country. Created to protect the Islamic Revolution, it operates in parallel to the regular army and answers only to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Over decades, the IRGC has grown into a military, political and economic empire, with external operations conducted through its Quds Force.
Even more insulated is North Korea's Supreme Guard Command, active since 1946. Estimated at around 100,000 troops it exists solely to protect the Kim dynasty. Its members are selected through multigenerational vetting, and they construct multiple security perimeters around the leader.
It remains one of the most secretive security units in the world, and one of the clearest examples of how personal rule becomes institutionalised.
Taken together, these forces reveal a pattern. Authoritarian leaders distrust regular institutions, including their own armies. They build parallel structures, reward personal loyalty and concentrate violence in small, controllable units.
