Two trucks and a few soldiers lined in a row like ducks. A tank sitting alone.

If the coup you're executing results in civilians being able to seize a tank and police having soldiers in custody, the coup lacked the overwhelming ingredient and swift execution that would paralyze and kill any hope of resisting.

It needed to be clear that the deal was sealed to morally crush anyone willing to resist and make them understand that it's done and they'd better line up with the winning party.

Civilians seizing a tank means they sized the military presence and said "Meh.. we're going for it anyway".

An example of a well executed coup: The Algerian coup in 1965. Algerians woke up in the morning and found tanks in the streets of the capital, but it wasn't the beginning of the coup. It had already taken place. Tanks didn't really surprise because Gillo Pontecorvo was shooting "The Battle of Algiers" during that period and also used tanks (one of the greatest movies. Music by Ennio Morricone).

The President was seized in his bed during the night, they woke him up and he was made prisoner for 15 years (liberated by the subsequent President after Boumédiène's death). The coup's instigator had the control of the Army and Intelligence before.

There are many people who don't know there was a coup in 1965.

but military knows it can't easily get away killing civilians.

You're very right! This is precisely why they must avoid a situation where civilians think they have a chance.

Imagine you're one of 20 soldiers guarding a bridge.

4 people come to cross. They look at you, see that you're 20 and don't like those odds, they won't even attempt to cross. But even if they get funny ideas, you can scare them more easily. But even if they're determined, the number of civilians each one of you has to shoot is small: 1 civilian for every 5 soldiers. You can manage. You can direct your shots to be non lethal. You have time to aim and all.

Now imagine it's a thousand people. The civilians look at you, size you up, and they like those odds. They know some of them are going to die overrunning you, but almost no one thinks they will be the one. This makes them go for it.

What's your perspective? You're in a dilemma: you don't want to betray the mission to interdict that bridge, that's for sure. But let's say you're willing to shoot, the deal is the following: if you start shooting, you better not be overrun because once you go that path there's no turning back. This puts you in a corner into thinking "What if they still don't stop" and the number of people each one of you has to shoot on average is huge: 50. 50 civilians for each one of you. In a very limited time frame. You're not in a war zone, most of them are unarmed, and you could know or be related to some of them.

So, do you go on with the mission? Do you shoot everyone? Do you start shooting but then stop shooting? But when you do, you'll be captured, and you'll be captured after killing many civilians..so you failed to interdict the bridge and failed not to kill citizens. It's not like you dropped your weapons before there were any civilian casualties.. Which you can't do either because you have a mission.

This is one of the situations where anything half-assed becomes a blood bath and a "victory" à la Pyrrhus..

Contrast that with a military presence strong enough that sends a signal loud and clear to the civilians they'd better not mess with you because there's no chance they could succeed. Dissuasion to avoid a bloodshed.

Here is a chart that describes the practical steps: https://embed.gyazo.com/4324b66e1a3045ad63349061a76f4756.png

According to that illustration, the coup plotters missed the crucial step of breaching the president's residence and capturing him. They completely mistimed the coup when the president was on vacation outside the country. Now he has been able to rally support against the coup and his supporters are on the streets protesting against the army

You might be speaking too soon.

The media is reporting his plane landed at an airport a few minutes ago, so if it is in the hands of the military then he will be captured.

Time like this though, don't believe anybody or anything you hear, including me.

He was reportedly on holiday in Turkey in Marmaris, so maybe they did not know where he was or did not have the man power to capture him.

I wonder how it would have played out if they had captured him. I can even imagine that more people would have protested.

Deliberately timing coups for when the standing leader is on vacation is actually not all that uncommon, because it makes it possible to contain them under pretense of normalcy. E.g. Gorbachev in 1991, where they basically locked him up in his Crimean residence.

Its funny how Putin and Erdogan were meeting a couple of days ago. Maybe Erdogan was warned and took "a vacation"?

It was widely noted in the media that France closed its Turkish embassy (on "security fears") two days prior to this. It certainly makes you wonder if the word didn't get out.

It's important to remember that those "security fears" were in reference to Bastille Day.

Where is that chart from, from the book mentioned a few comments above?

Update: Ok, yes, found it via Image Search: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-how-to-execute-a-coup-2...

Capture the Prime Minister and President. The coup leaders failed to do that.

Yes. That's coup d'etat 101: capture political leaders and secure them. Only then can you move on to the next step.

If this thing goes south -- and I fear it will -- the backlash will be severe. Not a good thing for the future of Turkey.

> If this thing goes south -- and I fear it will -- the backlash will be severe. Not a good thing for the future of Turkey.

Especially considering he has been a tempered authoritarian before the coup. Now they will respond by expanding authority. Leaders like that always do.

Hopefully that will further lead to support of the coup end goals which had some legitimacy. The only problem is that Erogdan has many hardline islamic fanatics who will take to the streets and help maintain his power.

But those military gained access to aircrafts, bombs and their activation systems, which they used to bomb the parliament and seemingly many other targets in Ankara and Istambul. Makes you wonder how safe is Europe.

> The only problem is Erdogan has many hardline islamic fanatics to help m...

Ahem, really, how safe is Europe if, for example, France decided that we have an Islamisation/integration problem, and started massively revoking visas from Mediterranean regions? How would Turkey / Turkey military dissidents with access to such weapons react?

So maybe yes, maybe it should be made clear that military people in Turkey should follow orders and only orders, or be subject to martial law.

I wish it were that simple.

The problem is that Turkey is not changing up civilian control. They've had Erdogen for what? 13 years? That's not a healthy system. That's a system where one bunch is running the tables. Such systems always lead to much worse than military coups. Anybody checked out Venezuela lately?

There's probably been some support for IS coming from Turkey, although not from the military. Turkey is a NATO member and nuclear. They're in the middle of a really tense and unstable region.

All of this is bad. Really bad. And now we'll get 10x more of it.

I do not support military coups if a civilian government is functioning and changing up the dominent parties and leaders every so often. Everybody gets a turn. I don't see that in Turkey. I see a country headed either towards internal or external crisis. Perhaps both.

There's also another point: the vast majority of citizens in a country may want to have leaders and policies that destroy it. That's their right. If that's where Turkey is headed, NATO alliance members need to think about how to adapt accordingly.

You win ;)

As a side note, French presidents were elected for 7 years x2, which makes 14 years for Mitterand (1981-1995) and 12 for Chirac (1995-2007). But at least PMs change and they can't renew again.

Exactly. Look for a full-scale purge of the military, which might include punishing/shooting a lot of people who had nothing to do with anything.

It could take Turkey back 110 years. Very sad.

Venezuela's coup that ousted Chavez, and had the people reinstate him, might be a fair comparison. The returning leader will have a carte blanche for future politics.