Who is the Deep State

From 2 of the greatest political philosophers in the world.

So, because we were lucky enough to have 2 of the greatest political philosophers on a panel at the same time, I am going to quote from them directly. There’s no way I could say it better. If you’d prefer to watch the video, I included it but here we go Who is the Deep State?

Jeffrey Sachs: I think it's obvious there's basically one deep State party and that is the party of Cheney, Harris, Biden, Victoria Nuland, my colleague at Columbia University now, and Nuland is kind of the face of all of this, because she has been in every Administration for the last 30 years. She was in the Clinton Administration wrecking our policies towards Russia in the 1990s, she was in the Bush Administration, (Bush) Jr with Cheney, wrecking our policies towards NATO enlargement, she was in, then the Obama Administration as Hillary's spokesperson first, and then making a coup in Ukraine in February 2014, not a great move, started a war, then she was Biden’s Under-Secretary of State, now, that’s both parties, it’s a colossal mess and um she’s been Cheney’s adviser, she’s been Biden’s advisor, she uh makes perfect sense. This is the reality we're trying to find out if there's another party that's the big question. David Sacks: and John what’s your thought on that? Do you see any difference between uh Republicans and Democrats"?

John Mearsheimer: No, I like to refer to the Republicans and the Democrats as Tweedle-D and Tweedle-Dumb, there's hardly any difference. I actually think the one exception is that former president Trump, when he became president in 2017, was bent on beating back the Deep State, and becoming a different kind of leader on the foreign policy front, but he basically failed, and he is vowed that if he gets elected this time it will be different, and he will beat back the Deep State. He will pursue a foreign policy that's fundamentally different than Republicans and Democrats have pursued up to now, and the big question on the table is whether or not you think Trump can beat the Deep State, and these two established parties and I bet against Trump.

Chamath Palihapitiya: John… and Jeff, but let's start with John, can you actually define for us—for me I don't understand when people say Deep State, what it is—I almost view the term comically, we have one of our friends in our group chat who we call Deep State who is—he's Deep State—he's really in the Deep State, but we say it as a joke, but for maybe the uninitiated, what does it actually mean? What are their incentives? Who are they? Jeff, maybe you want to start or John you want to start?

John: Yeah, I'll say a few words about it. When we talk about the Deep State, we're talking really about the “Administrative State”, it's very important to understand, that starting in the late 19th, early 20th century, given developments in the American economy, it was imperative that we develop—and this was true of all Western countries—a very powerful Central State. That could run the country, and over time that state has grown in power, and since World War II the United States, as you all know, has been involved in every nook and cranny of the world fighting Wars. Here, there, and everywhere, and to do that you need a very powerful Administrative State, that can help manage foreign policy but, in the process, what happens is you get all of these high-level bureaucrats’, middle-level, and low-level bureaucrats who become established in positions in the Pentagon, the State Department, the Intelligence Community, you name it, and they end up having a vested interest in pursuing a ‘particular’ foreign policy and the ‘particular’ foreign policy that they like to pursue, is the one that the Democrats and the Republicans are pushing, and that’s why we talk about Tweedle-D and Tweedle-Dumb, with regard to the two parties. You could throw in the Deep State as being on the same page as those other two institutions.

Jeff: Yeah, there's a very interesting interview of Putin in Figaro in 2017, and he says, “I've dealt with three presidents now, they come into office with some ideas even, but then the men in the dark suits, and the blue ties” and then he said, “I wear red ties, but they wear blue ties, they come in and explain the way the world really is, and there go the ideas” and I think that’s Putin’s experience, that’s our experience, that’s my experience, which is that there’s a deeply entrained foreign policy, it has been in place in my interpretation for many decades, but arguably a variant of it has been in place since 1992. I got to watch some of it early on, because I was an adviser to Gorbachev, and I was an adviser to Yeltsin, and so I saw early makings of this, though I didn't fully understand it, except in retrospect, but that policy has been mostly in place, pretty consistently for 30 years, and it didn't really matter whether it was Bush Sr, whether it was Clinton, whether it was Bush Jr, whether it was Obama, whether it was Trump, after all who did Trump hire? He hired, John Bolton well, duh, pretty deep State, that was the end of, they told (him) you know, he explained, this is the way it is, and by the way Bolton explained also, in his Memoirs, when Trump didn't agree we figured out ways to trick him basically.

Chamath: So, what, what are their incentives? Is it war? Is it self-enrichment? Is it power? Is it all three? Is it some or—

David Friedberg: Is it just, is there a philosophical entrenchment or is it just this, inertial issue that like, once a policy begins it’s hard to change and the system’s just working with 10,000 people working towards it?

Jeff: You know if I weren’t lucky to sit next to the world's greatest political philosopher which I am, um, he'd give you a good answer, which is the right answer, which is, if you want to interpret American Foreign Policy it is to MAXIMIZE POWER…….

This was the most eloquent explanation of the Deep State that I’ve ever heard. I truly struggle with defining the deep state so much that I try to avoid using that term for lack of ability to explain it. This arms me so when I am asked, what do you mean by the ‘Deep State’? I can point to this definition, see I know it exists, a lot of us know it exists but it’s hard to define and this is on purpose, they want it vague enough for us peons that merely bringing it up leads to ridicule. Professor Sachs and Professor Mearsheimer continue with:

Jeffrey Sachs: John gives an explanation of that, we have some differences (of opinion), but I think it's a very good description of American Foreign Policy, which is that it's trying to maximize Global power, essentially to be a Global Hegemon, I think it could get us all killed, this is because it's a little bit delusional, in my mind, but not his interpretation of their idea, but the fact that they hold that idea, is a little weird to me, but in any event that's the idea, and every time a decision comes inside that I've seen, I'm an economist, so I don't see security decisions the same way, but every decision that I've seen, always leans in the same direction, for the last 30 years, which is POWER, as the central objective. Clinton faced an internal cabinet, really, debate, should NATO be enlarged?

David Friedberg: Is this-this a post-Cold War phenomenon?

Sachs: That, it's, well I'll, I'll let John take that.

John Mearsheimer: Just two very quick points, first of all, I do believe that the people who, uh, are in favor of this foreign policy do believe in it. It's not cynical, they really believe that we're doing the right thing.

Friedberg: I've met them, yeah.

John: Yeah, the second point I would make to you, and this sort of adds on to what Jeff said, Jeff said power has a lot to do with this, and as a good Realist, I, of course, believe that, but it's also very important to understand, that the United States is a fundamentally liberal country, and we believe that we have a right, we have a responsibility, and we have the power to run around the world, and remake the world in America's image. Most people in the Foreign Policy establishment, the Republican Party, the Democratic party, they believe that, and that is what has motivated our foreign policy, in large part, since the Cold War ended, because remember, when the cold war ends, we have no rival great power left, so what are we going to do with all this power that we have? What we decide to do, is go out and remake the world in our own image…

I would probably add to this, there is an NGO, or Non-Governmental Organization, called the NED, the National Endowment for Democracy, and their mission is spreading Democracy worldwide, they do this through bribes and blackmail in many different forms, if they’re not able to make a deal, the CIA is their enforcement arm, they don’t play ball, the CIA works with the NED to overthrow their government by force. When Jeff talks about the coup in 2014, this is what he is talking about, for more on this listen to the episode of Congressional Dish on the National Endowment for Democracy, or more specifically in the following video. This is the Deep State at work.

Thank you for reading.

Jordan Lee, Editor-in-Chief, Declaration of warLiberty