@Apileofballyhoo
The dry run aspect is worrisome. Imagine if the Trump administration was competent.
You do reach an interesting intersection in affairs where the people who are competent are also competent enough not to get involved. It's the resultant enforced cronyism (think Giuliani) that makes despotic regimes so unstable. You can only get so far putting your mates in charge before the whole shebang falls down. You only need to look at the UK for proof.
So if it was a "dry run" it was a spectacularly inept one, as the whole point of a "dry run" is that it doesn't change the environment you intend to commit the ultimate action in. However it's entirely possible that Trumps cable genuinely think "dry run" just means he got to the bathroom on time. For a change.
It's well worth wargaming all of these things (fuck all else to do in lockdown). Let's assume that come Jan 20th, "something" happens that derails Bidens inauguration to the extent that he does not become POTUS (I would suggest this would need some legal expertise, but the whole point of revolutions and coups is they tend not to respect the existing law and precedent).
What then ?
As a planet, what then ? Does the rest of the world go "Oh, OK, we thought your Constitution provided for democractic leadership. But now you've abandoned that we're quite happy to remain allies/enemies" and carry on as if it was the most normal thing in the world ?
What is NATOs brief here ? (Curious to recall how much Trump hated NATO). My recollection from the bad old days of the 1970s was that NATO members had a brief to intervene if a member state fell victim to a coup/revolution. If that still holds, what does the UK do ?
I hope that out there, some people in power - or that answer to people in power - have some immediate and cogent answers to all those questions. If not I would consider it a failure of strategic analysis and want someones head on a plate.