One particular Americanism is the study of civics in high school. This is not something universal, and it is maybe instructive to reflect on why it isn’t, i.e. why some governments prefer their citizens not to understand the machinery of state. In any case, lacking such an education in civics, Coup d’Etat was a fascinating deconstructionist introduction to the subject – in this case, perhaps literally deconstructionist in that it gives a practical guide to penetrating and manipulating the state. Luttwak’s book has the unique honour of having been practically used as a guide in several coups, with bloodied copies of it found on the desks of recently deceased conspirators in the wake of failed coup attempts.
In reading Coup d’Etat, I had hoped for a selection of case studies along with distilled lessons. Unfortunately, the book is instead more of a step-by-step guide to orchestrating a coup, which goes into the prosaic details like giving you a table template to identify which figures of the government need to be neutralised – though I am fairly amused by the thought of modern coup conspirators setting this up in Notion. The book is therefore dry at times, and it is hard to feel like you are getting deep insight, but perhaps this highlights the important lesson is that coups are often technical feats of statecraft rather than violent military upheavals.
The most interesting part of Coup d’Etat is its preface, which strikes me as highly controversial, maybe even “cancellable” in some circles. He takes a remarkably reactionary view against decolonisation, not going so far as arguing that colonialism was a good thing, but unambiguously saying that many “backwards countries” (his words, to be clear) became independent too soon. If one can suppress outrage long enough to consider his argument, especially in the context of his deep study of the history of coups, his hypothesis is hard to immediately reject.
If colonialism were a crime, its greatest offense was its abrupt undoing. It left fragile native cultures, embryonic modern societies, and minority peoples utterly ill equipped to protect themselves when power was abandoned into the hands of political leaders armed with the powerful machine of the modern state.
I could see the book being a useful reference to help understand an ongoing coup. Still, generally, I did not come away from Coup d’Etat feeling like I had a significantly richer knowledge of history or politics.