The risky logic of sabotaging your own military

HostThink about those massive military parades you see on the news sometimes. There's usually a leader standing on a balcony, and right behind them is a general in a uniform covered in medals. That general is the leader's main protector, the one who keeps the country safe. But at the same time, that same officer is the biggest threat the leader faces. They're the one person with the keys to the tanks.

HostWhy would a leader ever want their own military to be less than the best? It seems like you would be setting yourself up for failure.

GuestIt's a total head-scratcher until you look at it from the perspective of staying in power. We usually think a leader wants the strongest, most sharp military possible to scare off other countries. But for a dictator, the army is a double-edged sword. It's the only group in the country with the guns and the organization to stop an invasion, but it's also the only group that can kick the leader out of the palace overnight. This is what people call the dictator’s dilemma. Any move you make to make your army better at fighting a war also makes them better at pulling off a coup. If they're fast, well-organized, and good at talking to each other, they're a danger to you. So, to stay alive, a leader will often pick a loyal, messy army over a brilliant, dangerous one. They would rather have a military that's bad at fighting than one that's good at taking over the government.

HostThat sounds like a really dangerous gamble. If a neighbor decides to attack, you're basically sitting ducks because you were too afraid of your own guys.

GuestYeah, and that's a risk they're willing to take because a coup is often a much more likely threat than a full-scale invasion. To stop that from happening, they use a trick called counter-balancing. Instead of having one big, unified army with one person in charge, the leader breaks everything up. They create multiple security groups that all overlap and, most importantly, don't talk to each other. You might have the regular army, but then you build a special Republican Guard that only answers to you. Their whole job is basically to watch the regular army. You keep these groups in a state of constant friction. You want them to be suspicious of each other and fight over money and gear.

HostBut having all these different groups seems like it would just lead to a lot of confusion. How does making your own people hate each other actually keep you safe in the palace?

GuestIt works because it makes it almost impossible for anyone to plan a plot in secret. If a general in the regular army wants to start a coup, they have to worry that a rival agency is spying on them. Those other groups have a huge reason to tell on the general because they want to get in good with the leader or take over the general's budget. It's hard to get enough people together to take over the capital when you can't trust the guy in the next building over. The leader becomes the only person who sees the whole map. Everyone else is just looking at their own little piece, and they're too busy watching their rivals to look at the guy on the balcony.

HostSo you keep them divided. But what about the people in charge? Surely you still need some smart people to run the show, right? You can't just fill the whole officer corps with people who don't know what they're doing.

GuestWell, that's exactly what often happens. Instead of picking the best soldiers for the job, dictators go for what's called ethnic stacking. They fill the top ranks and the elite units with people from their own small tribe, their own religious group, or even just their own family. This creates a shared fate. These officers know that if the leader falls, the rest of the country might come after them next. They're often from a minority group, so they feel like they have to keep the leader in power just to survive themselves. Loyalty becomes a survival instinct. You don't get promoted because you're a genius at strategy; you get promoted because your cousin is the president. This also stops a popular hero from rising up. If a general gets too famous or too well-liked by the troops, they become a threat, so the leader might get rid of them before they can even think about a challenge.

HostThis all sounds like it keeps the leader very safe at home, but I keep thinking about what happens when a real war starts. If your generals are only there because of who their dad is, and they can't talk to each other, how do they actually fight?

GuestThey usually don't fight very well. That's the lethal cost of this whole system. All those things that prevent a coup, like making sure units can't talk without permission, absolutely destroy a military's ability to fight a real enemy. In a real war, things move fast. You need commanders who can think for themselves and move quickly. But in these systems, commanders are terrified of taking any initiative. They're more scared of being executed by their own leader for acting alone than they're of losing a battle to the enemy. We see this throughout history. Armies that look huge and scary on paper just fall apart the moment they face a real fight. The commanders wait for orders that never come, or they're too afraid to tell the leader that things are going badly.

GuestThe system is built to protect the leader from the people in the room, not from an army coming across the border.

HostIt's wild to think that the very medals on that general's chest at the parade might be there precisely because he's not a threat, rather than because he's a great soldier. The person standing right behind the leader is kept close because they're family, but they're also kept weak so they can never step forward.