This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
A deep state [1] is a type of government made up of potentially secret and unauthorized networks of power operating independently of a state's political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals. In popular usage, the term carries overwhelmingly negative connotations. [2]
During the presidency of Donald Trump, the term "deep state" has been primarily used in the United States to describe the "permanent government" of entrenched career bureaucrats or civil servants acting in accordance with the mandates of their agencies and congressional statutes when seen as in conflict with the administration. [3]
"Deep state" is a calque of the Turkish word derin devlet (lit. 'deep state'). The modern concept of a deep state is associated with Turkey, a presumed secret network of military officers and their civilian allies trying to preserve the secular order based on the ideas of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from 1923. [4] There are also opinions that the deep state in Turkey and "Counter-Guerrilla" was established in the Cold War era as a part of Gladio Organization to sway Turkey more into NATO against the threat of the expansion of Soviet communism. [5]
After the 2016 United States presidential election, deep state became much more widely used as a pejorative term with an overwhelmingly negative definition by both the Donald Trump administration and conservative-leaning media outlets. [6] [7]
According to the journalist Julia Ioffe, the Russian Republic of Chechnya, under the leadership of Ramzan Kadyrov, had become a state within a state by 2015. [8]
In 2013, author Abdul-Azim Ahmed wrote the deep state was being used to refer to Egyptian military/security networks, particularly the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces after the 2011 Egyptian revolution. They are "non-democratic leaders within a country" whose power is "independent of any political changes that take place". They are "often hidden beneath layers of bureaucracy" and may not be "in complete control at all times" but have "tangible control of key resources (whether human or financial)". He also wrote: "The 'deep state' is beginning to become short hand for the embedded anti-democratic power structures within a government, something very few democracies can claim to be free from." [9]
In May 2020, an article in Haaretz describes how people meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "have heard lengthy speeches [...] that even though he has been elected repeatedly, in reality, the country is controlled by a 'deep state.'" [10]
The most famous case is Propaganda Due. [11] Propaganda Due (better known as P2) was a Masonic lodge belonging to the Grand Orient of Italy (GOI). It was founded in 1877 with the name of Masonic Propaganda, [12] in the period of its management by the entrepreneur Licio Gelli it assumed deviated forms with respect to the statutes of the Freemasonry and became subversive towards the Italian legal order. The P2 was suspended by the GOI on 26 July 1976; subsequently, the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the P2 Masonic lodge under the presidency of Minister Tina Anselmi concluded the P2 case by denouncing the lodge as a real "criminal organization" [13] and "subversive". It was dissolved with a special law, the n. 17 of 25 January 1982.
Robert Worth argues deep state is "just as apt" for networks in many states in the Middle East where governments have colluded with smugglers and jihadis (Syria), jihadi veterans of the Soviet–Afghan War (Yemen), and other criminals working as irregular forces (Egypt and Algeria). [14] In his book From Deep State to Islamic State, he describes a hard core of regimes in Syria, Egypt, and Yemen that staged successful counter-revolutions against the Arab Spring in those countries, comparing them with the Mamluks of Egypt and the Levant 1250–1517 in that they proclaim themselves servants of the putative rulers while actually ruling themselves. [15]
Since independence, the Pakistan Armed Forces have always had a huge influence in the country's politics. [16] In addition to the decades of direct rule by the military government, the military also has many constraints on the power of the elected prime ministers, and also has been accused of being a deep state. [17] [18] [19] Pakistani army is often referred to as "The Establishment" due to its deep involvement in country's decision-making processes. [20]
According to the Journalist Robert F. Worth, "The expression 'deep state' had originated in Turkey in the 1990s, where the military colluded with drug traffickers and hit men to wage a dirty war against Kurdish insurgents". [14] Professor Ryan Gingeras wrote that the Turkish term derin devlet "colloquially speaking" refers to "'criminal' or 'rogue' element that have somehow muscled their way into power". [21] The journalist Dexter Filkins wrote of a "presumed clandestine network" of Turkish "military officers and their civilian allies" who, for decades, "suppressed and sometimes murdered dissidents, Communists, reporters, Islamists, Christian missionaries, and members of minority groups—anyone thought to pose a threat to the secular order". [22] Journalist Hugh Roberts has described the "shady nexus" between the police and intelligence services, "certain politicians and organised crime", whose members believe they are authorised "to get up to all sorts of unavowable things" because they are "custodians of the higher interests of the nation". [15]
The Civil Service has been called a deep state by senior politicians. In 2018, Steve Hilton, then advisor to David Cameron, claimed Tony Blair had said: "You cannot underestimate how much they believe it's their job to actually run the country and to resist the changes put forward by people they dismiss as 'here today, gone tomorrow' politicians. They genuinely see themselves as the true guardians of the national interest, and think that their job is simply to wear you down and wait you out." [23]
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss claimed that she was forced out of office by the 'deep state'. [24]
Since at least 1963, the deep state has been used to describe "a hybrid association of government elements and parts of top-level industry and finance that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process." [25] Intelligence agencies such as the CIA have been accused by elements of the Donald Trump administration of attempting to thwart its policy goals. [26] Writing for The New York Times , the analyst Issandr El Amani warned against the "growing discord between a president and his bureaucratic rank-and-file", while analysts of the column The Interpreter wrote: [26]
Though the deep state is sometimes discussed as a shadowy conspiracy, it helps to think of it instead as a political conflict between a nation's leader and its governing institutions.
— Amanda Taub and Max Fisher, The Interpreter
According to the political commentator David Gergen, quoted by Time in early 2017, the term has been appropriated by Steve Bannon, Breitbart News, and other supporters of the Trump Administration in order to delegitimize critics of the Trump presidency. [27] In February 2017, the deep state theory was dismissed by authors for The New York Times , [26] as well as The New York Observer . [28] In October 2019 The New York Times gave credence to the general idea by publishing an opinion piece arguing that the deep state in the civil service was created to "battle people like Trump". [29]
Scholars have generally disputed the notion that the U.S. executive branch bureaucracy represents a true deep state as the term is formally understood but have taken a range of views on the role of that bureaucracy in constraining or empowering the U.S. president. [30]
The Cartel of the Suns, a group of high-ranking officials within the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela, has been described as "a series of often competing networks buried deep within the Chavista regime". Following the Bolivarian Revolution, the Bolivarian government initially embezzled until there were no more funds to embezzle, which required them to turn to drug trafficking. President Hugo Chávez made partnerships with the Colombian leftist militia Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and his successor Nicolás Maduro continued the process, promoting officials to high-ranking positions after they were accused of drug trafficking. [31]
State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terrorist organizations, providing training, supplying weapons, providing other logistical and intelligence assistance, and hosting groups within their borders. Because of the pejorative nature of the word, the identification of particular examples are often subject to political dispute and different definitions of terrorism.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey. He previously served as prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which he co-founded in 2001. He also served as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998.
The term "illiberal democracy" describes a governing system that hides its "nondemocratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures". There is a lack of consensus among experts about the exact definition of illiberal democracy or whether it even exists.
Susurluk is a municipality and district of Balıkesir Province, Turkey. Its area is 652 km2, and its population is 37,724 (2022). It is famous for its production of soap and dairy products. The highway from Istanbul to İzmir passes through Susurluk. In Turkey Susurluk is known for its 'tost' - a toasted cheese sandwich with tomato paste, and for its foamy ayran. The mayor is Nurettin Güney (İYİ).
Pakistan and the United States established relations on 15 August 1947, a day after the independence of Pakistan, when the United States became one of the first nations to recognize the country.
In Turkey, the deep state is an alleged group of influential anti-democratic coalitions inside the Turkish political structure, composed of high-level elements within the intelligence services, the Turkish military, security agencies, the judiciary, and mafia. The political agenda of the deep state network purportedly involves an allegiance to nationalism, corporatism, and state interests. Violence and other means of pressure have historically been employed in a largely covert manner to manipulate political and economic elites, ensuring that specific interests are met within the seemingly democratic framework of the political landscape. Former president Süleyman Demirel says that central to the outlook and behavior of the predominantly military elites who constitute the deep state, is an effort to uphold national interests which have been shaped by an entrenched belief, dating back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, that the country is always "on the brink".
Muhammed Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish Muslim scholar, preacher, and a one-time opinion leader, as de facto leader of the Gülen movement. Gülen is designated an influential neo-Ottomanist, Anatolian panethnicist, Islamic poet, writer, social critic, and activist–dissident developing a Nursian theological perspective that embraces democratic modernity. Gülen was a local state imam from 1959 to 1981, and he was a citizen of Turkey until his denaturalization by the Turkish government in 2017. Over the years, Gülen became a centrist political figure in Turkey prior to his being there as a fugitive. Since 1999, Gülen has lived in self-exile in the United States near Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.
The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and by its Arabic acronym Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist group and a former unrecognised quasi-state. Its origins were in the Jai'sh al-Taifa al-Mansurah organization founded by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2004, which fought alongside al-Qaeda during the Iraqi insurgency. The group gained global prominence in 2014, when its militants successfully captured large territories in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, taking advantage of the ongoing Syrian civil war. By the end of 2015, it ruled an area with an estimated population of twelve million people, where it enforced its extremist interpretation of Islamic law, managed an annual budget exceeding US$1 billion, and commanded more than 30,000 fighters.
Bureaucracy is a system of organisation where decisions are made by a body of non-elected officials. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials. Today, bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution, whether publicly owned or privately owned. The public administration in many jurisdictions is an example of bureaucracy, as is any centralized hierarchical structure of an institution, including corporations, societies, nonprofit organisations, and clubs.
Neo-nationalism, or new nationalism, is an ideology and political movement built on the basic characteristics of classical nationalism. It developed to its final form by applying elements with reactionary character generated as a reaction to the political, economic and socio-cultural changes that came with globalization during the second wave of globalization in the 1980s.
Pakistan's role in the War on Terror is a widely discussed topic among policy-makers of various countries, political analysts and international delegates around the world. Pakistan has simultaneously received allegations of harbouring and aiding terrorists and commendation for its anti-terror efforts. Since 2001, the country has also hosted millions of Afghan refugees who fled the war in Afghanistan.
The “Turkish model” refers to the focus on Republic of Turkey as "an example of a modern, moderate Muslim state that works." Turkey has been seen as combining a secular state and constitution, with a government run by a political party or political parties with "roots in political Islam". The AKP, led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has ruled Turkey with a large majority in parliament since 2002. During this time Turkey has had good relations with the West, but also cordial ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran and a more pro-Palestinian policy. It has had vigorously contested, "substantially free and fair" elections, a vibrant culture, and has undergone an economic boom, developing a "large and growing middle class." However, as of summer 2013 and the crushing of the Taksim Gezi Park protests, some commentators complained that the model has come "unstuck".
Abd el-Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi is an Egyptian politician and retired military officer who has served as the sixth and current president of Egypt since 2014. Before retiring as a general in the Egyptian military in 2014, Sisi served as Egypt's deputy prime minister from 2013 to 2014, minister of defense from 2012 to 2013, and director of military intelligence from 2010 to 2012. He was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal in January 2014.
On 22 September 2014, the United States officially intervened in the Syrian civil war with the stated aim of fighting the terrorist organization ISIS in support of the international war against it, code named Operation Inherent Resolve. The US currently continues to support the Syrian rebels and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces opposed to both the Islamic State and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East and other regions of the Muslim world. The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen; and disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iraq. The struggle also extends to disputes or broader competition in other countries globally including in West, North and East Africa, South, Central, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
According to an American political conspiracy theory, the deep state is a clandestine network of members of the federal government, working in conjunction with high-level financial and industrial entities and leaders, to exercise power alongside or within the elected United States government.
U.S. foreign policy during the presidency of Donald Trump (2017–2021) was noted for its unpredictability and reneging on prior international commitments, upending diplomatic conventions, embracing political and economic brinkmanship with most adversaries, and stronger relations with traditional allies. Trump's "America First" policy pursued nationalist foreign policy objectives and prioritized bilateral relations over multinational agreements. As president, Trump described himself as a nationalist while espousing views that have been characterized as isolationist, non-interventionist, and protectionist, although the "isolationist" label has been disputed, including by Trump himself, and periods of his political career have been described by the alternative term “semi-isolationist.” He personally praised some populist, neo-nationalist, illiberal, and authoritarian governments, while antagonizing others, even as administration diplomats nominally continued to pursue pro-democracy ideals abroad.
On Palm Sunday, 9 April 2017, twin suicide bombings took place at St. George's Church in the northern Egyptian city of Tanta on the Nile delta, and Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, the principal church in Alexandria, seat of the Coptic papacy. At least 44 people were reported killed and 100 injured. The attacks were carried out by a security detachment of ISIS.
The Qatar diplomatic crisis was a high-profile incident involving the deterioration of ties between Qatar and the Arab League between 2017 and 2021. It began when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt simultaneously severed their bilateral relations with Qatar and subsequently banned Qatar-registered aircraft and Qatari ships from utilizing their sovereign territory by air, land, and sea; this involved the Saudis' closure of Qatar's only land crossing, initiating a de facto blockade of the country. Tensions between the two sides came to a close in January 2021, following a resolution between the Saudis and the Qataris.
The presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan began when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took the oath of office on 28 August 2014 and became the 12th president of Turkey. He administered the new Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's oath on 29 August. When asked about his lower-than-expected 51.79% share of the vote, he allegedly responded, "there were even those who did not like the Prophet. I, however, won 52%." Assuming the role of President, Erdoğan was criticized for openly stating that he would not maintain the tradition of presidential neutrality. Erdoğan has also stated his intention to pursue a more active role as President, such as utilising the President's rarely used cabinet-calling powers. The political opposition has argued that Erdoğan will continue to pursue his own political agenda, controlling the government, while his new Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu would be docile and submissive. Furthermore, the domination of loyal Erdoğan supporters in Davutoğlu's cabinet fuelled speculation that Erdoğan intended to exercise substantial control over the government.
The civil-military establishment ruled Supreme for 60 years - from 1947 to 2007 - by crushing or betraying social movements and preventing the development of society.
Is the Central Intelligence Agency a state within a state?Alt URL
'This is a dark conspiratorial view that is being pushed by [top Trump strategist] Steve Bannon, his allies at Breitbart and some others in the conservative movement that is trying to delegitimize the opposition to Trump in many quarters and pass the blame to others,' said David Gergen.
In some respects, the term [Makhzen] could be analogous to "the deep state" as the term is applied to some segments of the governing authorities in other countries.