Why do generals attempting to coup always storm the palace? What happens next? Why do ordinary soldiers follow them? Are they in on the plot?
In: Economics
Yes, for a coup to be successful you need to have a large following and a plan *before* attempting the coup. History is full of failed coups. E.g. Spain with Tejero, recently Venezuela, etc.
This is not too bad of an explanation, told quite humorously: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeurjIY3__o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeurjIY3__o)
The Dictators Handbook is a great read that explains this all fairly well.
What keeps a party in power is their ability to control the military, both economically and politically. If either of these issues, but more specifically the economics, are threatened then the military leaders become susceptible to either seize power for themselves or seize power with the intent to install a new government that is more politically acceptable.
So let’s discuss a military led coup first.
The economic issue is pretty simple to understand: if the country stops paying the military, the military will turn around and take it. When the hand thatvfeeds you stops feeding, biting is fair game.
The political issue is a little more complex, but to give one example – if the morale of the military is so low and the governments actions so distasteful to the military structure – there is a chance the military attempts to seize power eith the thought of simply replacing the existing government. It’s rare for a military to seize power and then *retain* it, because a military is not a government structure – it would devolve into essentially a warlord situation.
Anyway, the either situation the result is the same: find an opportune time to physically attack the entire leadership structure of the country.
Now let’s talk *government* lead coups.
A democracy or parliament system can fall to coups if the commander in chief, for whatever reason, orders the military to attempt a dissolution of the other branches of government by way of literally killing them. This requires that the economic and political issues are mitigated by the commander (i.e. they have the ability to pay and/or bribe the military, AND their politics are at least palettable).
This can *also* happen by a *citizen lead* couple. The general populace can literally diamantle their government by raising the capital when the majority of the government body is in session and kill them.
Imagine if, on Janaury 6th, the crowd made it to the House and Senate chambers and just straight up killed every single member of the house and senate. Just straight up an entire branch of government was gone overnight. Whomever lead that would probablynbe powerful enough, politically, to force some form of structural change to our government because the chaos that would ensue would be unimaginable.
They don’t always storm the palace, but the first step in claiming to be “in charge” is to remove the people currently in charge.
People attempting a coup often don’t even have the full support of the majority of the army, so it’s important to act swifltly before the Head of state declares them traitor and mobilize loyalists.
As an exemple of an alternative to “storming the palace” , there’s the attempted coup against the King of Morroco . Two jets left an airforce base and opened fire on the Royal plane as it was coming back from France. They (foolishly) stopped their attack once the plane radioed the king was dead.
It was a ruse, the plane made an emergency landing, they came back and strafed the airport.. But the game was already up and the Army was already moving to encircle the airforce base.
The Air Force general “commited suicide” by 10 shots in the back.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Moroccan_coup_attempt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Moroccan_coup_attempt)
All governments that have control over their territory enjoys these 3 ‘inherent powers’ as they are called, because they are required to be able to effectively govern the land:
1. The Power of Taxation – That the Government has the right to demand the citizens to pay for the services they provide.
2. The Power of Eminent Domain – That the Government has effective control of the territory that they claim and can thus develop it accordingly.
3. Police Power – That the government can enforce the laws they pass.
All of these inherent powers come from the fact that they’re needed for the state to function but also from the fact that they have a ‘monopoly on violence’.
This “monopoly on violence” is simply a way of saying that only the government has the right to use force as a means of getting what they want – that since they can in theory shoot people just because, then they can pretty much do whatever they want. Of course in practice they employ all kinds of laws and restrictions on these, but that’s pretty much what it is.
Now, what’s important here isn’t really how the monopoly on violence is used, only that it’s used by the government. For as long as they control this monopoly, then they remain in power within that country. However, since someone has to manage that monopoly, if that person decides to then turn against the “legitimate, de jure” government, then that person effectively becomes the “illegitimate, de facto” government. This usually translates to a general deciding that they want to be the new king and their army generally nodding in agreement and then begin enforcing their new rules, taking their own taxes, etc. until the de jure government effectively loses all control of their country – they can’t enforce a law if the police and military decides that they don’t want to, and they don’t have the power to force the police and military to enforce their law.
This is why coups happen more often in countries with a centralized military and, more importantly, with Generals and other Military officers at the top. Because then it’s clear who the actual holder of the “Monopoly” is and their turning on the government means that the government no longer has the means to fight back.
It’s also why it’s extremely difficult to organize a coup d’etat in a country like the US – because the military is so big and disorganized, you’d have to take control of so many people that it becomes unfeasible, and failure to do so means that it will fail.
Your big brother has a a toy that you would like to have. You go to him, grab the toy and if he fights you to keep it you scream and you act like he was just trying to snatch the toy from you. Your mom, the people, will be automatically on your side and you get to keep the toy.
You might be referring to the failed coup in Bolivia this week. From what I gather, the general led a tank charge through the gates of the palace. The president declared it was a coup attempt and the soldiers, once they realized what was going on, retreated and arrested the general.
The reason for “storming the palace” was to capture the seat of government, capture the president and as many loyalist govt officials as possible and claim power. Usually declaring martial law and setting up a new government in the process. If successful, the new government will take over all ministries, governorships, etc and usually purge the remnants of the old regime.
If it fails, usually by not gaining the support of the people and unable to capture enough of the loyalists, the coup leadership will be arrested and usually executed.
In a lot of places the capital city is the political/economic/cultural center of the country. Hell, look at a map of Burkina Faso (or France for that matter) and most of the major roads are coming out of the capital like spokes on a wagon wheel. In a country that’s set up like that if you can control the area within about 10 miles of the “palace” you effectively control the whole country.
One thing you’re really going to want to do first thing if you’re trying to pull off a coup is run around and grab up the prime minister and the defense minister and anyone else who could get on a phone and start calling up military units that are still loyal to the current regime. So that’s why you’re always going to see pictures of soldiers running into the parliament or the prime minister’s residence or whatever during a coup.
If the coup works and you can control who comes and goes in the capital then you’d go on the local TV station (which you’ve also sent some guys around to capture) and say something like “This is General Barbeau, the Prime Minister and his cabinet have been arrested for crimes. We ask for calm during this period of national emergency. There will be new elections held in 6 months and everything will go back to normal.”
As far as why the individual soldiers in the Army go along with it, there are lots of reasons. At the most basic level if you’re asleep in the barracks and your sergeant shakes you awake and says “Hey, private, you’ve got 5 minutes to get your shit together, there’s a coup happening in the capital and we’re going to stop it” you’re not going to know that you’re the one doing the coup until you’re already doing it.
For a coup to work, enough people with power (and that probably means the military rank and file as they have guns) need to believe and support the coup leader. And they need to believe that the current leader is not rightfully in that position, either because they obtained the position illegally, they are seen as too corrupt, they are seen as traitors to the country, etc…. Note that the corruption of the current leader doesn’t have to be true, the coup followers just have to believe it’s true.
That is tricky because the leader of the coup has to really know that “his” people are truly behind him/her and that the enough other people are not truly behind the current leader or the coup could go very badly.
But if the coup leader is charismatic enough and has developed enough loyalty so that his people are willing to fight and die for him/her, and there are enough of those loyal people to pull it off, they can try.
That’s why coups are generally military leaders because they inspire loyalty in the people with the most guns and guns mean power.
So, the military leader convinces his people that he/she should be in charge and that the “right thing to do” is to oust the current traitorous bastard, then they use their guns to overtake the capital and capture the current leader and, providing there is not enough opposition to the coup (at least not enough opposition from people with power – which means guns), the military leader is now de facto running the country because no one can stand up to them.
Even if all the rest of the people in the country think the coup is not legal and that the original leader is the rightful one, what can they do when the organization with the most guns supports the coup? It’s also why the coup leader will often say “the old leader was a traitor and a criminal” and “as soon as things calm down, we’ll have elections” but they won’t. They just say that to pacify the regular people.
This is why it is very, very important that all the people with guns believe in the rule of law and that the documents that define the country (i.e. the constitutions) are the MOST IMPORTANT laws to follow and even hold them sacred. You don’t want the people with guns to believe that specific individuals are the most important thing and the key to a great country. As soon as people tie their loyalty to an individual and not the organizing framework, you are going to have trouble.
They want to control the seat of power and will attempt to either kill the leader or keep them under house arrest so they can’t oppose the new government. In many successful coup attempts the soldiers were more loyal to a charismatic commander who is seen as one of them unlike the rich elites in government, they can command loyalty of the troops and risk less in having soldiers turn on them. In the other case speed is of the essence as it’s often a smaller group of generals or government officials that have the loyalty of a few that can tell other troops what to do. If the coup is exposed or the leader mobilises the loyalists then it’s often over before it gets started.
Generally in all cases you want to act swiftly because if the leader is able to escape or mobilise troops in any way then you’ll be in trouble. Many exiled leaders have come back to bite a military junta in the ass. In some cases like in South Korea you had coups that didn’t involve the military at all but the government’s own intelligence services that used their ability to have meetings and be close to the president and his inner circle to kill them over a dinner meeting and take others hostage. Once you have power and nobody to oppose you militarily it falls into place quite quickly, the average citizen and even soldier just wants to get paid and for the country to work so they can take care of their family. Once things calm down, rules are enforced and everyone goes back to work, the taste for revenge or restoring an old regime dies out.
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