American Deep State

THE VISIT OF Prime Minister Narendra Modi to meet President Donald Trump and a few others in Washington DC covered a lot of ground. Some of the discussion points are known, while others will remain unknown for the simple reason that none of the reporters asked the occupant of the White House. Had they done so and had Trump managed to pierce their Indian accents, very little of the discussion points—not to be confused with actual, recorded decisions—would have remained a secret. As opposed to Modi who tends to be taciturn and awkward in press conferences, Trump is instinctively garrulous and is least concerned about the effects of his blunt assertions.

Among the subjects missing from the disclosed versions of the Modi-Trump deliberations was any dissection of the American Deep State—an issue that is of deep concern to Trump’s MAGA base. Their interest is understandable. While the existence of a Deep State is a feature of most countries, its operations are covered in a very large measure of bipartisanship and a broad consensus over what constitutes the national interest. In Pakistan, however, there exists a parallel Deep State whose operations are outside any form of scrutiny. Those who have read former CIA operative David McCloskey’s amazing thriller Damascus Station will gauge why the excesses of the Deep State triggered the eventual downfall of the Assad regime in Syria. It is also suggested that Vladimir Putin personally oversees the operations of the Deep State in Russia—a reason why he is so utterly vilified in western Europe—but the details of how and why the agenda of the Deep State either deviates from or complements national policy isn’t very clear.

The US was one country where the cloak and dagger stuff, whether undertaken in Langley or unknown offices and bunkers, was covered by a well-established and effective oversight process. This was also true of Britain and those familiar with John Le Carré’s series of George Smiley novels will realise the huge but understated importance of Oliver Lacon of the Cabinet Office. The Cold War was both fought and won by successive Republican and Democratic administrations. I don’t think the Kennedy and Johnson administrations found it necessary to be exasperated by the undercover activities of the Eisenhower administration. Likewise, Ronald Reagan may have found Jimmy Carter’s handling of US interests overseas quite ineffective, but I don’t think the integrity of the Democratic administration was thought to be suspect.

This bipartisanship has well and truly broken down. The ferocity with which MAGA activists have been targeting the Deep State under Obama and Biden is quite unprecedented. The charges stem from the belief—and some of them seem quite justified—that rather than promote the interests of the US, the organs of the Deep State which include USAID (established by the Kennedy administration) and National Endowment for Democracy (created by the Reagan administration), have diverted large amounts of money in pursuit of weird ideological goals. These included bankrolling transgender activism and other forms of sexual politics. It has also emerged that a significant part of the money disbursed from the involuntary contributions of US taxpayers was channelled into the coffers of organisations with terror links.

We in India have been shaken because it now transpires that US dollars were being distributed to activists and so-called journalists, ostensibly to bolster the spirit of democracy but in effect, to open multiple fronts in the war against the Modi government. This is also what happened in Bangladesh. There seems to be grounds for believing the boast of Muhammad Yunus to the Clinton Foundation that the regime change in Bangladesh was meticulously planned. Was this planning at the behest of the Biden administration? Or, are there enough grounds for believing that a section of the State Department and CIA successfully destabilised Bangladesh in pursuit of a Deep State agenda?

These questions are being legitimately asked because in the wake of the Trump administration assuming charge, there is now a paper trail linking organisations such as USAID and NED to private wars against governments that did not threaten the national interests of the US. If Kash Patel follows Tulsi Gabbard in having his appointment duly ratified, we can expect many more details of Deep State activities to follow. Just as it took one archivist in the KGB establishment in Moscow to bring out the explosive Mitrokhin Archives, it is the MAGA activists who were persecuted by the Deep State from 2020 to 2024 who have the right motivation to unearth uncomfortable truths.

The question is: what are we going to do once we know the full story? Are we in India going to see the government publish a White Paper that, if nothing else, names and shames those who took dirty money to destabilise elected governments? Or are we going to pretend that nothing happened?

Deep StateDonald TrumpgeopoliticsKash PatelMAGAOliver LaconRonald ReaganRussia