The US military is currently the most powerful in the world. Is there anything in place, besides soldiers’/CO’s individual allegiances to stop a military coup?
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It’s precisely because the US military is so powerful that pulling off a coup is a risky endeavor not worth the trouble.
Say you, as a general, has garnered enough loyalty for your command to take over District of Columbia and force the President to resign and the Congress to acknowledge you as new President… now what? You’ve got the rest of the military gunning for you and, if you’re not outright besieged on Washington DC, then you’ll be stuck in a drawn out civil war fought between your largely illegitimate government and US military plus whatever ally they could gather up worldwide. Your immediate neighbors will condemn your actions and your choices of friends are an entire ocean and a frozen desert away.
Even taking over nukes won’t work since the US didn’t put them all in one basket and, more importantly, nukes are kinda counterintuitive when the goal is to instigate a coup.
So unless you can get the entire military behind you, it’s just not worth the trouble trying to instigate a coup when you could just run for President or a cabinet office after your service.
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