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Military Coup

A military coup (d'etat) is an organized action by the armed forces of a country meant to overthrow and replace its government. It can be successful (the former government is replaced by a new one controlled by the military) or not (the government stays in power), it can be temporary (the military relinquishes power quickly) or permanent (the military remains in control for lengthy periods of time), bloody or bloodless. 

It is different from a revolution, since a coup is a top-down action, controlled and generated from an existing structure of the state against another, rather than a bottom-up action of rebellion against the whole government coming from non-governament actors (as in the case of a revolution), as is different from a civil war (where two factions, typically a governmental and non-governmental actor fight for power in a bloody war for lengthy periods), since a coup can be both non-bloody and short in duration (such as the successful Thai coup of 2006).
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