In 2012, General Thomas ET Brutus assumed charge as the Military Plenipotentiary, becoming the Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces of the United States, and moved into the White House. It was ostensibly a coup since he disallowed the Vice President from taking oath as was constitutionally ordained given that the President had been incapacitated. The American Coup of 2012 was made easier since a decade earlier, Congress had approved the use of the military for law enforcement. Naval and Air Force assets were regularly deployed for counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean Sea, while the District of Columbia National Guards “established a regular presence in high-crime areas”.
This is, of course, a work of fiction, but with a major difference — it was officially endorsed by the military leadership. The annual Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategy Essay Competition held by the National Defense University selected an entry titled The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 in 1991-92. It was written by Lt Col Charles Dunlap, a Deputy Judge Advocate General branch officer then attending Staff Course at the US Army War College.
The winning formula for the competition has to be originality and relevance to the use of the military in national security strategy. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff then was Gen Colin Powell, who later became the Secretary of State in a Republican administration. And the author retired as a Major General.
The topic of the essay that was selected as the co-winner of the competition and the career graph of the author is a true testament to the military culture in the US. Despite all professional militaries being governed by the ‘zero-error’ syndrome, the fact that an award as prestigious as this was given to an entry as unusual as a hypothetical coup says much for the intellectualism encouraged by the armed forces leadership. The inheritors of that military leadership were on 30 September addressed by their two senior-most civilian leaders, President Donald Trump and his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, in an unusual meeting.
Yes, Hegseth has been redesignated as the Secretary of War, since Trump renamed the Department of Defense as the Department of War. The last time it was called the Department of War was during World War II, and it was probably appropriate then since the US was engaged in both the European and Asian theatres against the Axis Powers.
But in 2025, the US is not engaged in any declared conflict, other than the unilateral military actions it undertakes as a matter of habit — deploying a couple of nuclear submarines off the Russian coast, sending a fleet of warships to threaten Venezuela, and bombing Iran’s nuclear sites with Israel.
A war within
Going by the two political speeches delivered at this extraordinary meeting of the military top brass, it is patently obvious that the war being evoked is within the country, inside the system, and against a culture which encourages diversity in all forms. Beginning with Hegseth, the tone was set quite clearly when he declared, “We became the woke department, but not anymore… Real toxic leadership is promoting people based on immutable characteristics or quotas, instead of based on merit.. Well, today is another Liberation Day, the liberation of America’s warriors, in name, in deed, and in authorities.”
The previous liberation event was not the 1776 Independence Day, but the announcement of trade tariffs by Trump. It is clear that the focus is within the country rather than on transnational security scenarios. So the expletive slang FAFO (f*** around and find out) gets thrown around in a room full of four-star military leaders and their subordinates. And then the looks — “No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.”
And then came the derisive diatribe, “It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world, it’s a bad look.”
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Trump’s self-promotion
President Trump was not to be left behind, and set the ball rolling even before the meeting got underway, saying that he would fire any military leader on the spot if he didn’t like them.
Many had already been sacked, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen Charles Q Brown Jr, the first African American to become the head of a military service.
Trump’s rambling speech was about himself, not any national security directive, or analysis. Self-credit was repeated: “I have settled so many wars,” he said, before adding jewels like, “I love my signature, I really do. Everyone loves my signature”.
Much like saying that India and Pakistan have shared a tense border “for 1,500 years”, Trump also got the Palestine-Israel conflict age wrong, calling it 3,000 years old. Canada was once again on the insulting end when the Golden Dome missile shield was mentioned.
“Canada called me a couple of weeks ago, they want to be part of it, to which I said, well, why don’t you just join our country, you’d become 51, become the 51st state and you’d get it for free,” Trump said.
As the self-promotion continued, he said, “We’re the hottest country in the world right now, the absolute hottest country in the world”.
Re-reading about the environment prevailing in the time of the hypothetical Gen Thomas ET Brutus, fiction trumping reality is very much a certainty. Inner-city crime, drug trafficking, and routine law enforcement duties, with the credibility of the political class taking a nosedive, were the conditions that allowed a military coup. Not that a coup is even possible, despite the deliberate haemorrhaging of higher military leadership. But the war is within, “And I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard, but military, because we’re going into Chicago very soon.”
Manvendra Singh is a BJP leader, Editor-in-Chief of Defence & Security Alert, and Chairman, Soldier Welfare Advisory Committee, Rajasthan. He tweets @ManvendraJasol. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)