Is the US ripe for a coup?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Your guessing is ungrounded in fact.

Nor is your confident speculation to the contrary.

Except that I'm a retired military man, and working historian. I consult with the Naval History and Heritage Command and provided material to the Center for Military History as well as seventeen foreign countries. Hyperwar has 200 terabytes of files on WWII, a twenty-five year project to date. I have my Masters in History from Purdue. 

Other than that and some more things, you're right, I got nothing.

[Anomalocaris]

Nor is your confident speculation to the contrary.

Except that I'm a retired military man, and working historian. I consult with the Naval History and Heritage Command and provided material to the Center for Military History as well as seventeen foreign countries. Hyperwar has 200 terabytes of files on WWII, a twenty-five year project to date. I have my Masters in History from Purdue. 

Other than that and some more things, you're right, I got nothing.

The circumstance we are talking about is unprecedented in the history of modern US military, and the closest analogue would be with germany’s Wehrmacht under Hitler.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Except that I'm a retired military man, and working historian. I consult with the Naval History and Heritage Command and provided material to the Center for Military History as well as seventeen foreign countries. Hyperwar has 200 terabytes of files on WWII, a twenty-five year project to date. I have my Masters in History from Purdue. 

Other than that and some more things, you're right, I got nothing.

The circumstance we are talking about is unprecedented in the history of modern US military, and the closest analogue would be with germany’s Wehrmacht under Hitler.

Not at all. The German officer corps followed the Prussian school, and an oath (like the one they swore to Hitler personally) was beyond sacred to them. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There is a difference there.

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BTW, look up "The Newburgh Conspiracy".

[The Grand Nudger]

I don;t know about the upper brass....but I couldn't have (and never will be able) to accept an order to fire on or oppress the US public as a lawful order.

-Just receiving an order like that would make me a defector and insurgent...and I;d take all the gear I could ruck out of there with me when I went. There'd be claymores in the trees and at4s in the attic. Fuck some michigan militia, that kind of an order would make enemies of a broad swathe of joes.

[Ravenshire]

Not at all. The German officer corps followed the Prussian school, and an oath (like the one they swore to Hitler personally) was beyond sacred to them. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There is a difference there.

(emphasis is mine)

This is the loophole that I think could be used in the very unlikely event of a coup. If enough of the military became convinced the Trumpster was a legitimate domestic threat, and Congress had taken no action, they would be bound by their oath to defend their nation against that threat. This would most likely not take the form of action against the presidency, but action against the sitting president. It would also be a last ditch action in a case where congress has failed in their duty to a degree I find, despite all the corrupt fuck-nuggets currently elected, unbelievable.

[Jehanne]

I don;t know about the upper brass....but I couldn't have (and never will be able) to accept an order to fire on or oppress the US public as a lawful order.

-Just receiving an order like that would make me a defector and insurgent...and I;d take all the gear I could ruck out of there with me when I went.  There'd be claymores in the trees and at4s in the attic.  Fuck some michigan militia, that kind of an order would make enemies of a broad swathe of joes.

Only if they fired upon you first, though!  That's the point that I was trying to make in my OP, that if a commanding General was given an order (say, to launch a nuclear strike) and they refused and also refused to step-down if Trump fired them, would their troops support them if the FBI showed-up with an arrest warrant?

[The Grand Nudger]

Infantry don't feel any particular fear or obedience towards law enforcement......but it wouldn't be a general we'd be supporting in that instance.  We don't actually owe fealty to our commanding officers. He'd make his case to his men. It would be unlikely that we wouldn't be given the chance to sit it out if we wanted to...but unlikely that many would...and we'd probably go the route of fortification rather than counter assualt.

I can't think of a group of people who yearn for thermonuclear war less than grunts.

- I also have to add here...that no sane fbi agent would try to assault a position held by sufficient military forces.......I mean, if they got a bug up their ass and tried some shit to start with, they'd be quickly dissuaded.

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also, what you're asking about now isn't a coup.  No one in that situation is looking to remove the civilian authorities and put themselves in their place.  It's just a nightmare scenario that has no happy outcome for anyone involved.  No decent officer would take his men down with him in that one for trivial reasons, and good luck getting the support of the men if you're not a decent officer in that particular case.   He'd just try to hold the facility until what he saw as the crisis was passed..and then plead clemency for his soldiers at court martial. This isn't an altogether unheard of narrative..though, obviously, nukes...so, lol.

[Anomalocaris]

The circumstance we are talking about is unprecedented in the history of modern US military, and the closest analogue would be with germany’s Wehrmacht under Hitler.

Not at all. The German officer corps followed the Prussian school, and an oath (like the one they swore to Hitler personally) was beyond sacred to them. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There is a difference there.

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The difference is superficial.  The underlying behavior is more likely to be similar.

The personal oath of fealty to Hitler was likely not decisive in the actions of many, probably the majority, of whermachr's senior officers.   That oath to Hitler constrained their choices was largely a post war fiction designed to rehabilitate the reputation of the German army in order to rearm Germany as a member of NATO.   The fiction of the clean and dutiful Prussian officer vs the villainous SS has been largely dispelled by German historiography since the end of the cold war. German army was both quite corrupt and competitive with the SS in the extent of its war crimes.

As a matter of fact, Hitler himself was well aware of the fact that whermachr's oath pacified the rank and file much more than the senior officers who are in position to make decisions in moments of crisis.  As s result, Hitler felt it prudent to personally bribed most of the senior whemacht officers with large cash grants, feudal estates in conquerored Poland, and other benefits such as open ended repayment of personal loans.  In other words the bonds of personal financial interest ties senior German officers to Hitler to a vastly higher degree than is often recognized.

I think when the chips are down, the higher the rank of the officer, the more sophisticated he is likely to be in reconciling his own interpretation of the meaning of his oath with his personal interests. This is likely common to most military services. Military services can not be counted on to risk the personal welfare and career prospects of the the senior officer Corp to defend the interest of larger country and other social groups unless the social class with which the officier Corp identifies is itself threatened.

[The Grand Nudger]

Perhaps...but, if we're discussing some sort of coup...you're gonna need more than the highest ranking officers to pull it off. US military culture just isn't conducive to the requirements of a coup.

Think it through, if you'r counting on corruption at the top, and some sort of automaton response beneath based on conditioning and indoctrination..then you can't really expect the automoton response to be one that's directly contradictory to our conditioning and indoctrination. You're going to have a hard time convincing a bunch of US military to overthrow the US government, no matter how well invested or well promoted you are.

I think we can all agree that there's some corruption in the service..high and low, but none of it expresses itself in that way.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Not at all. The German officer corps followed the Prussian school, and an oath (like the one they swore to Hitler personally) was beyond sacred to them. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There is a difference there.

(emphasis is mine)

This is the loophole that I think could be used in the very unlikely event of a coup. If enough of the military became convinced the Trumpster was a legitimate domestic threat, and Congress had taken no action, they would be bound by their oath to defend their nation against that threat. This would most likely not take the form of action against the presidency, but action against the sitting president. It would also be a last ditch action in a case where congress has failed in their duty to a degree I find, despite all the corrupt fuck-nuggets currently elected, unbelievable.

Let me know when that happens. 

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Not at all. The German officer corps followed the Prussian school, and an oath (like the one they swore to Hitler personally) was beyond sacred to them. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There is a difference there.

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The difference is superficial. 

We're done here.