From what I understand, the military high command supported Yoon even after the assembly voted down martial law. If that’s true, didn’t he have everything to go through with the coup?
From what I understand, the military high command supported Yoon even after the assembly voted down martial law. If that’s true, didn’t he have everything to go through with the coup?
The high command might have been on Yoon’s side, but the soldiers on the ground were not. The high command can’t do shit if no one will follow their orders.
Soldiers were ordered to surround the Parliament and prevent a vote to end martial law. Yet the soldiers who were at the Parliament refused to fire upon or physically stop the politicians.
Couldn’t that have been just because of the immediate confusion and indecision about escalating by the lower unit commanders?
There could have been infighting in the military, but he surely would have had quite some support, no? Why not take the chance if he already commited to imposing martial law?
Edit: sorry if it came across like I support the guy. I don’t. I’m just interested in sociology and politics. If you downvote me, could you explain what I’m getting wrong?
Infighting in the military is a significant escalation on the path towards a civil war. The chance for the coup to have any appearance of legitimacy was lost very quickly so it was either take that risk or back down. Ideally for a coup to succeed you have these details sorted and a plan in place to seize control before you start the coup, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here so backing down was the only realistic choice.
Score one for humanity!
There are dozens of photos that most of the military unit who were active at the parliament did not have magazines in their guns and often had blue training guns in their holsters or blue training pins in their assault rifles.
This is nothing you do by accident - especially not in a highly qualified military like the SK military. It is a very good way of making sure that for starters none does something stupid like kill a MP, but also to show other units (and people) that you are not really on the side of whoever commanded you to do what you do. And it mak sure you look favorable in court if things turn against you.
Considering that this was not a singular occurrence but happened amongst all types of units someone has ordered them/coordinatated this.
How high up that was? Who knows. But it was a pretty strong sign, especially towards other units.
Who knows, in theory it could also be a valid scenario that the military was “faking support” to motivate Yoon,knowing that he will be impeached after that.