Just Finished Reading: How to Stage a Military Coup – From Planning to Execution by David Hebditch and Ken Connor (FP: 2009)

When I saw this on Amazon I honestly burst out laughing. I laughed even more when I discovered that it was neither a work of fiction nor a comedy. Written by a documentary film maker and an ex-serving member of the SAS this is actually a stage by stage exploration of military coups from around the world over the past 50 years or so (with the occasional deep history visit to the early 20th century) looking at what went wrong and, more importantly, what want right for each of them. Lessons are then learned and important aspects of each from each point in the process are noted for future reference. Not too surprisingly a copy of this very book was found amongst the belongings of a would-be coup leader on the brink of overthrowing an African dictator. As the authors gleefully pointed out the would-be military leader missed several important messages in the book which would have prevented their coup being discovered and foiled before it got off the ground.

Of course part of the fun of reading a book like this in public (well, at work in my case) in the funny looks you get from people. I had something similar some years ago when I read a book about European counter-terrorism called ‘Shoot the Women First’ on the train on my way into work. But I do enjoy the opportunity to add to my ‘reputation’. No doubt I’m on a watch list somewhere (again). But actually, although this book is about military coups and looks at some of them in considerable depth, the title is something of a misnomer. A more accurate title would have been ‘How NOT to Stage a Military Coup’ as the book spends a great deal of time showing how mistakes either during the planning or execution phase of the coup ended up getting people thrown into prison or shot for their trouble. Naturally lessons are learned from other people’s mistakes but only in a more general sense. Ideas for planning a successful coup are more hinted at than laid out for anyone to try out next time they fall out with the government of the day. If you wanted (or want) to learn how to overthrow your government you’d need to do a lot more reading than this! Luckily there’s a few good books mentioned in the notes section for anyone who fancies it to do some more background reading.

Generally I liked the style of the book very much. Knowledgeable and detailed with more than a hint of sarcasm and sometimes rather dark humour it was often a delight to read. Just about the only thing that irritated me throughout the book was the fact that each section – on the road from planning to execution – was prefaced by a short fictional account of a military coup in England. I actually think the odds of something like that happening are so long that it makes winning the lottery look like a dead cert. Unless something had gone very wrong with this country I doubt very much indeed if any significant numbers of military personnel would even consider overthrowing the government. It’s just silly. I think probably the only case of it ever happening here is at the end of the Civil War in the 17th century and calling it a coup might be stretching the point a bit. But even with this niggle (actually the fiction bits were rather well done!) this was still a fascinating read and will lead to more books on this and similar subjects – the Iranian coup which installed the Shah fostered by both the British and the Americans looks definitely worth more investigation. But if you are planning a coup in the near future you could do worse than start here. It’ll definitely point out some possible pitfalls you might then avoid before you end up in front of a firing squad. But if you are serious – keep on reading once you’ve turned he last page. One book on any subject is generally not enough – especially when your life might depend on it.