For a hypothetical future military to overthrow a tyrannical civil government would require the officers in charge to 1) think WAY outside the box, and 2) act on those thoughts.
It would take a genuine over-the-top condition of civil injustice for that to happen.
“It would surprise me because today’s military is trained first and foremost to obey orders...”
They’re trained to obey legal orders. Also, if all the books I’ve read on soldiers are true, they have no problem thinking for themselves.
“For a hypothetical future military to overthrow a tyrannical civil government would require the officers in charge to 1) think WAY outside the box, and 2) act on those thoughts.”
Aren’t those some of the things special forces are trained to do?
Our military officers and men aren't Star Wars clones. They come from our communities, sat next to us in school, maybe dated our sisters. If any tyrannical government faced a popular uprising so severe that the military was called in to suppress it, the soldiers and officers would face the decision on whether to fire on their neighbors, or people a lot like them, or to turn against Washington.
There hasn't been a successful revolution since the American that didn't involve large factions of the military changing sides (and even in the American revolution, which wasn't really a revolution, many of the key officers had some service to the Crown under their belts). In France and Russia, conscript soldiers had more sympathy for their kin than for their officers, and in China, the communists essentially were part of the military, having teamed up with the nationalists -- all the while beefing up their recruiting and fighting skills -- to fight the Japanese.
It would take a genuine over-the-top condition of civil injustice for that to happen.
Isn't that the way we want it? I'd hate to live in a country that has a military coup every few years over relatively mundane political disagreements.