The United States military is extremely unlikely to launch a coup. In the event any element of it tries, other elements can be relied on to fight them. There are a couple of reasons for this:
1) Our oaths are to the Constitution, which is to say we are formally loyal to the system, not to an office or its occupant. Nominally the Marine Corps has more specific loyalty to the office of the President, but even then sitting Presidents clearly trump aspiring ones.
2) Enlisted hold no special affection for senior military leadership. Partially this is because the organizations are huge and bureaucratic so there is no real contact, and partially this is because they aren’t particularly competent. We’re in a low ebb of military success, so even the famous recent generals you have heard of are famous because they failed-to-fail rather than because they did outstanding work. There are no generals popular enough to move a lot of soldiers to break the law or betray their oaths.
3) At least among the Army infantry, we talked about this kind of thing pretty frequently. I expect that if the military is to have a bad effect during a coup, it is much more likely because of excessive enthusiasm in putting one down.
I have heard the same claim, but I don’t find it credible. Even if it were, in order to make a credible attempt the Marine Corps would need the cooperation of the Navy, who don’t have the same level of admiration.
The United States military is extremely unlikely to launch a coup. In the event any element of it tries, other elements can be relied on to fight them. There are a couple of reasons for this:
1) Our oaths are to the Constitution, which is to say we are formally loyal to the system, not to an office or its occupant. Nominally the Marine Corps has more specific loyalty to the office of the President, but even then sitting Presidents clearly trump aspiring ones.
2) Enlisted hold no special affection for senior military leadership. Partially this is because the organizations are huge and bureaucratic so there is no real contact, and partially this is because they aren’t particularly competent. We’re in a low ebb of military success, so even the famous recent generals you have heard of are famous because they failed-to-fail rather than because they did outstanding work. There are no generals popular enough to move a lot of soldiers to break the law or betray their oaths.
3) At least among the Army infantry, we talked about this kind of thing pretty frequently. I expect that if the military is to have a bad effect during a coup, it is much more likely because of excessive enthusiasm in putting one down.
IIRC I’ve heard it claimed that Mattis is so popular that he could throw a coup, but that might only apply to the Marine Corps.
I have heard the same claim, but I don’t find it credible. Even if it were, in order to make a credible attempt the Marine Corps would need the cooperation of the Navy, who don’t have the same level of admiration.