Secondly - systems that start with soft power usually have a hard time transitioning to hard power. In the soviet union, they used a mix from the beginning, but post WW2 had exhausted their capacity for hard.

The system is trying to avoid this by using agitatible groups as their enforcers, but this also is not new. As anger grows at those groups the system will then reach out to protect them and the hand in control is revealed.