How to Stage a Military Coup: From Planning to Execution

The coup remains the single most common form of power change throughout the world. How to Stage a Military Coup explores these violent and often bloody appropriations of authority, alongside the political, military, and social conditions out of which they arise. Taking into account factors such as timing, media control, popular support and government organisational structure, and by drawing on examples of coups from all over the world, both failed and successful, the authors reveal exactly what it takes to carry out a successful government take-over. This latest, updated edition includes a new foreword by David Hebditch. AUTHORS: David Hebditch is an award-winning author and documentary film-maker. His first book for the general reader was about the smuggling of sensitive western technology to the Soviet Union (Techno-Bandits, 1983). In 2001 he produced and directed Allies and Lies, an investigation into covert operations in Bosnia, for BBC2. From 2003 he worked for NRK Television, Norway, on Stealing History about the looting of antiquities from war zones. Subsequently David and Ola Flyum won the 2005 Skup (Scoop) and ICIJ awards for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting. Between 2006 and 2016 he was involved in the production of Sarajevo Ricochet, A Town Betrayed and Taliban Oil. David is also the author (with SAS veteran Ken Connor) of How to Stage a Military Coup. Ken Connor was the longest-serving member of the elite British Special Air Service (SAS). He was the key figure in the creation of the anti terrorist unit responsible for storming the Iranian embassy in May 1980. He is alas the author of Ghost Force: The Secret History of the SAS.