The US deep state and its discontents

The idea of a State within a State is not entirely imaginary. With the political rise of Trump, the spectre of a deep state has become a bugbear in Right-wing circles

- Sreeram Chaulia

The political firestorm over an alleged transnational "deep state"—comprising the investigative journalist network, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Open Society Foundations (OSF) of the billionaire financier George Soros, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the government of the United States (US)—to "destabilise India" has brought crucial questions to the fore.

What exactly is a deep state? Is it a conspiracy theory or a real entity? And if it does exist, what are its effects domestically within the US and worldwide? For several decades, the term deep state has ricocheted in American politics to refer to a shadowy hybrid network of governmental, corporate, and non-governmental elites who wield enormous power, control policymaking levers, undermine elected politicians, and thwart the interests of the American people.

The famous farewell address of President Dwight Eisenhower in 1961, where he warned about "the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex" that could "endanger our liberties or democratic processes," was the first high-level acknowledgement of an unholy nexus of vested interest groups which was siphoning wealth and pushing excessive defence expenditures during the Cold War.