Thread by @ProfessorShaw

Thread🧵
One of the most important things about this piece is the focus on what was happening at the Pentagon. The insurrection at the capitol might seem relatively insignificant it were not for this much stronger display of Trump's intentions 1/
justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-o…

In his canonical book on coups, updated in 2016, Edward Luttwak pointed out the following (which as we shall see is somewhat ironic with regards to his own involvement):

and after January 6, Luttwak insisted it was not a coup because the events happened at the capitol, rather than constituting an attempt to take control of the military:

But as the article by @rgoodlaw and @justinhendrix shows, there was a significant effort to gain control of the Pentagon, with the replacement of key personnel, including adding LUTTWAK HIMSELF to the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board:
politico.com/newsletters/mo…

Luttwak had already participated in the pre-coup messaging, in the movie The Plot Against the President (featured on Amazon Video in November 2020), claiming the supposed Russiagate conspiracy was an attempted coup (though as described, it wouldn't have been by his own criteria)

There was very mixed messaging on the day. Luttwak would have counseled Trump to disavow the Capitol protestors, or firmly tell them to obey the law, to maximize his chances of taking office again:

https://twitter.com/ELuttwak/status/1347289327546544130

Control of the military is, for Luttwak, the key. It wasn't going to be a success without that. That control would require, according to his handbook, control of all ground troops (air and navy irrelevant in a coup) by coopting the leading decision-makers...

Milley wasn't on board. Charles Flynn was, and is rumored to be establishing alliance with others in the army now, as he commands US Army Pacific. I hope someone's keeping an eye on the allegiances of key personnel.

Luttwak's a long term critic of capitalism (like Bannon et al) on the grounds that it creates economic insecurity for many; in 1994 he claimed that the need to ensure job security for white collar workers would provide an opening for Fascism.
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v16/…

Now he's loudly denouncing the idea that there was an attempted coup, thereby helping Trump to retain his perceived legitimacy amongst his base. So it's important to keep an eye on the messaging that's still going on. It's not over yet.

One more thing. These guys hate the CIA and FBI. They only like the agencies (NSA etc) that are under DoD control. They'd happily abolish CIA if they could. Look at any of Luttwak's writings on them, including his tweets (right, @john_sipher ?). Hence the "deep state" rhetoric.

But Luttwak's a big fan of the NYPD. This is again from Thomas Meaney's 2015 Guardian profile of him: