The recent coup/revolution in Egypt got Rosa Brooks wondering if the US could lose its streak of 237 consecutive years without a military overthrow of a civilian government. Highlights include:

• American military officials are becoming more partisan. Political endorsements by retired senior officers, for example, are now a regular feature of Presidential campaigns.
• Army officers also increasingly distrust America’s civilian leadership.
• This is in part due to the all-volunteer military. A particular subset of individuals enlist for the military and they increasingly feel that the wider public don’t understand the lives of those in the military.
• While the military might distrust civilians, the American public holds extremely positive views about the military…perhaps a little too positive. Only a minority of Americans now favour civilian control of the military.

Read more about the conspiracy theorists who (almost certainly wrongly) believe that America is already on the verge of a coup, how those in the military are increasingly uncomfortable with discussing politics, and the distortions introduced by an all-volunteer military over here.

Source: Foreign Policy