How do coup d'etats and coup attempts happen?

An army is the one organisation already equipped to remove a government

Question: How do coup d'etats and coup attempts happen?
Position‹2 of 3›: Coup attempts are likely when there is military dissatisfaction with the government
Argument1 of 2›: An army is the one organisation already equipped to remove a government

The argument

Proponents of this position begin from a distinction between wanting a government gone and being able to remove it. Discontent with a government is ordinary and widely distributed. What is scarce is the capacity to act on it in a single night. Armed forces hold that capacity almost alone: they are armed, they are organised into a hierarchy that transmits an order without requiring those below to agree with it, they control communications and transport, and they can move through a capital and enter government buildings without the movement itself looking like an attack. On this account a coup is not the most intense form of opposition but a specific thing that one institution is uniquely equipped to do. The argument is that this changes which grievances matter. Civilian discontent, however widespread, has to be converted into something before it can threaten a government, whether a strike, a protest, an election or an insurgency built from nothing. Military discontent requires no conversion, because the instrument is already assembled, already trained to act together and already inside the building. Proponents add that the armed forces are also the institution a government relies on to survive other threats, so a government facing military discontent has lost not only its defence against a coup but its defence against everything else at the same time. Holders of the view conclude that the explanation of coups should be sought in the condition of the officer corps rather than in the condition of the country. A state can be poor, unpopular, badly governed and in crisis for years without a coup, if the army is content or divided. A state can be solvent and apparently stable and face one, if the army is not. They argue that this is why the question of how coups happen is in practice a question about what the armed forces want, fear and believe they are owed.

Premises

[P1]Removing a government by force requires weapons, a command structure that transmits orders without consent, control of communications and routine access to the seat of government. [P2] The armed forces hold that combination of capacities almost alone, so civilian discontent must be converted into an instrument while military discontent already has one. [P3] A government facing military discontent simultaneously loses the institution it relies on to defend it against other threats. [C] Coups are explained by the condition of the officer corps rather than by the condition of the country.

Counter-arguments

Critics argue that capacity explains who carries a coup out rather than why one happens, and that the position mistakes the instrument for the cause. Armies are frequently discontented and overwhelmingly do not act, which suggests that dissatisfaction is close to a constant and cannot be the thing that varies. They also note that the premise about access weakens where governments deliberately divide their forces, build parallel guards answerable to the leader, and keep units apart precisely so that no single commander holds the capacity described. Others object that treating the condition of the country as beside the point is implausible, since the grievances officers hold are commonly about the state of the country.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Governments routinely divide their forces and maintain parallel guards answerable to the leader, so the capacity described is often held by no single commander. [Rejecting P3] A government can retain police, intelligence services and loyal paramilitary forces as defences that do not depend on the regular army. [Rejecting C] Officer grievances are themselves usually about the condition of the country, so the two explanations cannot be separated as cleanly as the conclusion requires.