I want to welcome everyone back to part six of my reading of Koudetah by Edward Lutwak.

John Fieldhouse is back and we're going to jump right in.

Stop me anytime, John. Here we go.

Okay. Neutralizing the police. The flags and uniforms and the

military forces of different countries are very different, but their structure and

organizations tend to be similar because they reflect the universality of modern technology.

The tactical implications of weapons and ancillary equipment impose a certain uniformity on military organization.

This has enabled us to study their infiltration in terms that are generally applicable.

Police forces, however, are shaped by local, social, and political conditions and are therefore

very diverse.

Police officers can be armed very heavily or not at all. They can be concentrated in mobile

and hard-hitting units or dispersed in small groups. They can be controlled by the

Ministry of Defense and thus have a military training and outlook or by the

local community and be extremely civilian-minded.

Though their structure is so diverse, police forces resemble each other and the purposes they serve.

The prevention and detection of crime

and the maintenance of public order, which is the task of separate paramilitary forces in some countries where there are no such forces is secured by concentrating and deploying

ordinary police taken from their other work. Police work also includes an intelligent element.

Information is gathered informally by the entire police apparatus and their

informers, but there will usually be a special section of the police whose only function

is in this area. The intelligence aspect of police work will be

effectively neutralized by our general defensive effort vis-à-vis the

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