Luttwak’s Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook remains the best guide to planning a coup. Hebdritch is writing a generation later, and includes information about coups in Indian Ocean and South Pacific nations.
One change in the operational environment is the ubiquity of helicopters in the modern world. Most Armies and National Police forces have their own aviation units. These aircraft offer both an opportunity and a danger for the coup leaders. You can’t just neutralize the Air Force any more.
The primary difference between then and now is the role of the media in making or breaking a coup. In Luttwak’s time, it was possible to close the airport, seal the borders, seize the broadcast stations, and cut telecommunications cables. Your country could be cut off from international scrutiny until you had seized power. Not so today. As soon as the shooting starts, CNN and the BBC will be broadcasting via satellite from the roofs of their hotels. You are in a life or death struggle to win over international public opinion, preventing intervention on behalf of the legitimate government.
The coup leader must become the star of his own reality show. Gather up the international correspondents, and confine them ‘for their own safety’ in their favorite hotel bar. Free drinks and food on the New People’s Government, of course. You won’t be able to keep them incommunicado for long, so it is essential to have your own press officers help them get back on the air as soon as possible. Press officers must speak excellent English and should be photogenic female civilians. As soon as feasible, embed a few correspondents with your forces so that they can get action footage. Cue the cheering liberated population.
Luttwak’s book remains the one that every colonel should have in his knapsack, but he should make sure to scribble the local contact numbers for the BBC and CNN in the margins. ( )