[credit_guy]

Countries need to have multiple intelligence agencies. Having a single powerful one is absolutely courting disaster. Dictators understand this simple fact, and all dictatorships have lots of intelligence agencies spying on each other, so a coup becomes less likely. Coups still happen, obviously.

But democracies shouldn't fear coups, you say? 6 of January, I say back. Or Charles de Gaulle (wait, you didn't know that Charles de Gaulle successfully executed a coup in France in 1958? [1])

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1958_crisis_in_France

[mise_en_place]

The US has multiple intelligence agencies. CIA, FBI, DoD, ATF, Pentagon, NSA. They don’t talk to each other much, which is why 9/11 happened.

[vanattab]

did de gaullie execute a coup or did he just fill a power vacuum left as the result of a coup?

[credit_guy]

He actually executed the coup. The event is described in details in the book "Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27%C3%89tat:_A_Practica... [2] https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737266

[vanattab]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.