Stratocracy is a system of government in which the military control the country.

A stratocracy therefore is more often a meritocracy and does not have to be autocratic by nature in order to preserve its right to rule.

Since the Cardassian government is a military-controlled stratocracy, Legates serve both military and governmental functions simultaneously.

But Nhuan soon saw signs of Thiệu's stratocracy and officially voiced his opinion, for which he lost his position, at the beginning of the 1970s.

As a result of the intensification and escalation of the 'marketing of war', the whole civil society is heavily militarized while the LifeWorld is colonized by the apparatus of stratocracy.

Rather, stratocracy is a form of military government in which the state and the military are traditionally or constitutionally the same entity, and government positions are always occupied by commissioned officers and military leaders.

The Cardassian Union of the Star Trek universe can be described as a stratocracy, with a constitutionally and socially sanctioned, as well as politically dominant, military that nonetheless has strong meritocratic characteristics.

It may also imply the glorification of the ideals of a professional military class and the "predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state" (see also: stratocracy and military junta).

The closest modern equivalent to a stratocracy is the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar (Burma), which is arguably different from most other military dictatorships in that it completely abolished the civilian constitution and legislature.

To sustain this, in the context of the visible economic inferiority of the Soviet Union in the civilian sector, he proposed that the society may no longer be dominated by the party-state bureaucracy but by a "stratocracy"-a separate and dominant military sector with expansionist designs on the world.