Deep state

The deep state, state within a state, shadow government, or permanent government is a network of individuals and groups which are in actual charge of a national government. The democratically elected government works as a front, providing a level of plausible deniability and allowing the deep state to operate in secret. On matters of deep political importance, the public machinery of government is routinely subverted by agents of the deep state.

Deep state
Interest of	• 21st Century Wire • Aangirfan • Russ Baker • Jason Bermas • Big League Politics • Max Blumenthal • Boiling Frogs Post • Mae Brussell • Cryptogon • Deep Politics Forum • Dan Dicks • Sibel Edmonds • Lucy Morgan Edwards • John Ellwood • Bonnie Faulkner • Gangster Government • Richard Grove • ISGP • Mike Lofgren • Kris Millegan • Jefferson Morley • Peggy Noonan • Dirk Pohlmann • Saidit • Ralph Schoenman • Peter Dale Scott • Softpanorama • Pelle Neroth Taylor • The Corbett Report • The Deep State Blog • The Real News • Ola Tunander • Unwelcome Guests • Carlo Maria Viganò • Paul Joseph Watson • WeAreChange • Patrick Willis • Russ Winter • Karel van Wolferen
Subpage(s)	•Deep state/2017 Popularisation •Deep state/Policy •Deep state/Supranational nature
The deep state, state within a state, shadow government, permanent state or permanent government is a fluid network of individuals with de facto control of a national government. Many "democratically elected" governments work as fronts, allowing the deep state to operate in secret while providing a level of plausible deniability. On matters of deep political importance, the public machinery of government is routinely subverted by agents of the deep state.

The deep state (loosely synonymous with the shadow government, or occasionally permanent government or permanent state) is in contrast to the public structures which appear to be directing individual nation states. It is an intensely secretive, informal, fluid network of deep politicians whose deep state milieux effectively amplify their influence over national governments.

The phrase "deep state" derives from the Turkish "derin devlet". It emerged after the 1996 Susurluk car crash unmasked the Turkish deep state. It experienced a surge of use in 2017, often not in keeping with the meaning attributed by the diplomat who coined the phrase.

Official Narrative

The 1996 Susurluk car crash, the deep event which lead to the coining of the phrase "deep state".

The official narrative of deep states used to be that they were "conspiracy theory". This position was modified in the last few years to the claim that they don't exist here. In 2013 the New York Times defined the deep state as "a hard-to-perceive level of government or super-control that exists regardless of elections and that may thwart popular movements or radical change. Some have said that Egypt is being manipulated by its deep state." Since the Times (like the rest of the commercially-controlled media) is more or less a under the control of the deep state, such a mention is very interesting. The implication of the second half of their definition is clear:- other countries are not being manipulated by a deep state. A 2012 blog post at the World Bank takes the same line, "You think your country has undergone a transition to democracy... You realize that there are powerful elite formations bequeathed by years, even decades, of authoritarian rule still able to block progressive change and protect their interests." The statement that "deep states that exist in many youngish ‘democracies’" avoids discussion of nation states which have long claimed to be democracies.. A 2013 book entitled "Deep State" would soften the term, making no mention of false flag attacks and bemoaning 9-11 "conspiracy theorists".

2017 Popularisation

Full article: Deep state/2017 Popularisation

The phrase "deep state" experienced a huge rise in usage after the election of Donald Trump. In March 2017, in particular, corporate media outlets all seemed to be offering contradictory ideas about what the term might mean, some denying its applicability to the US (arguing that "There is no American Deep State... it just looks like there is") others contradicting the original meaning by suggesting it was politically partisan. This is an interesting development given the mound of evidence that the deep state controls corporate media.

Behaviour

In 1977, deep state operative Edwin Wilson sold about 20,000 kg of plastic explosives to Libya, together with training in bomb making from US green berets. The report of the 1986 Bilderberg charged that "Libya is the principal sponsor of terrorism. It finances terrorist acts, it trains terrorist groups, it supplies arms, ammunition, passports and other documents to terrorists, and it uses its embassies, so-called peoples' bureaus, as weapons storehouses and sanctuaries for terrorists. Recently, Libya has been escalating its involvement in terrorism."

Deep states are probably dominated by psychopaths and sociopaths. To preserve their power, they must not only stay in the shadows, but frustrate radical and progressive social change. Control of corporate media is essential to the effective operation of the deep state. In the US this is effected through deep state control of the CIA, which has huge influence over big media. With the apparatus of nation states under their control, their subterfuges can be elaborate and complex. Like Mafia families, deep state groups have a common interest in hiding their existence at all costs, leading to cooperation in times of crisis. As a Turkish cartoon put it in 1997 "Deep state protects its own."

Composition

The core of deep state groups and deep state milieu could be summarised by Dwight Eisenhower's "Military-industrial-congressional complex", although intelligence agencies are essential to their functioning. They are made up of:

• The leadership of intelligence agencies;
• Deep politicians, i.e. individuals who broker agreements between other members of the deep state.
• Some senior or longstanding non-elected officials within government (e.g. top civil servants);
• Selected individuals with effective control of key commercial, military and/or criminal groups in:
  • The "defence" and "counter-terrorism" industries;
  • The financial sector;
  • Corporate media

Supranational Nature

Full article: Supranational Deep State

It is an open question just how much deep state activity is control by the small cabal which control the US deep state. The name "deep state" suggests an immediate parallel with nation state, which is not altogether misleading, at least historically, since these groups often evolved as secret cabals to control nation states. However, although originating in particular localities, deep state factions are highly interlocked in the 21^st century deep politics. Peter Dale Scott refers in a recent essay to "A Supranational Deep State", noting how their international integration effectively allows deep states to evade even the limited control national governments had in the early 20^th century.

Fluid nature

Power relations between deep politicians remain fluid, so deep states should not be be seen as alternative power structures to the visible organisational structures which they dominate. Relationships between Mafia families offer a suitable parallel, combining an often uneasy cooperation with occasional violent and sudden change. All deep state groups share share a common interest in preventing exposure of the real goings on behind the facade of electoral politics, so even violently opposed factions can cooperate to hide the true nature of deep events.

Deep Politics

Full article: Deep Politics

"Deep Politics" is a term used to describe the topics and processes of importance to the agents of the deep state. These might or might not be recognisable as connected to the concerns called "politics". In most countries of the world today, party politics is more or less used as a veneer to obscure the real considerations. In contrast to multiple levels of superficial political considerations, deep political motives are sometimes much simpler; Charlotte Denett, for example, suggests that the deep politics of WW1 and WW2 actually centered on control of the Middle East's resources of oil and natural gas.

Deep Events

Full article: Deep Events

Deep Events are the footprints of the deep state. Peter Dale Scott specifies 3 levels:

1. Low level deep events, typically unnoticed at the time, are discovered only as part of later investigations.
2. Mid level deep events, typically accompanied by a set of cover stories to obscure their deep political significance.
3. Structural deep events, rare and ambitious, which to try to change entire societies, sometimes without them even knowing it.

The defining structural deep events of the late 20^th century was the JFK Assassination, a coup d'etat that radically changed the US political scene. which the establishment presented it to US citizens as the work of a "lone nut".

The defining structural deep event of the 21^st century was the 9/11 attacks, which the perpetual war known as the "War on Terror". Details such as Larry Silverstein's multi-billion dollar windfall and the insider trading are widely known, but evidence is accumulating that these were but minor parts of much larger suite of financial frauds carried out by deep political insiders who capitalised on the opportunity.

 

Examples

Page name	Description
Ancient Rome/Deep state	The Ancient Roman Deep State.
Australia/Deep state	The Australian deep state appears to be closely controlled from London/Washington. It has been using the country as a test-ground for emerging social control legislation.
Austria/Deep state	The Austrian deep state
Belgium/Deep state	The Belgian Deep state, most significantly exposed by the Dutroux Affair, appears to employ similar methods of control to other European deep states, including bribes, sexual blackmail, intimidation and assassination.
Canada/Deep state	The Canadian Deep state in 2022 was shown to be in the grip of the Supranational Deep State.
China/Deep state	Xi vs Shanghai or more complex?
Denmark/Deep state	The Danish deep state, not yet well documented here.
Europe/Deep state	As a highly secretive, long established deep state milieu, Le Cercle, has been active Europe wide in political subversion.
Finland/Deep state	The Finnish deep state is currently influenced by the WEF
France/Deep state	The French deep state, closely collaborating with Supranational Deep State policy since 2001.
Germany/Deep state	Taken over by the US/UK deep state after the German defeat in WW2. A high profile public "denazification" was used to hide the high degree of deep state continuity.
Greece/Deep state	The Greek deep state
Israel/Deep state	The Israeli Deep state is important and highly influential, but not well documented.
Italy/Deep state	The Italian deep state, post-WW II, centered on the Operation Gladio network run through NATO and heavily influenced by the CIA and MI6.
Japan/Deep state	The Japanese deep state was rebooted by the US deep state after the Japanese defeat in WW2.<a href="#cite_note-1">[1]</a><a href="#cite_note-2">[2]</a> The Japanese government took a much more careful line than other countries as regards the COVID jabs.
Netherlands/Deep state	Closely allied with the US Deep state. Leader and strange enabler (after banning it after World War II) of the EU-illegal drug trade, run from Amsterdam. Known for Bernhard von Biesterfeld and his involvement in developing Bilderberg and the 1001 club, and a possible sex cult and crime syndicate surrounding the royal family. Since the 2010s led by deep politicians and their consultants in NATO and EU institutes.
Norway/Deep state	The Norwegian Deep state used operation Gladio era cells in the 20th century, and contains members of the Norwegian Shipowners' Association.
Pakistan/Deep state	The military plays an very notable role in Pakistani politics.
Poland/Deep state	The Polish deep state
Portugal/Deep state	The Portuguese deep state is not yet well documented in Wikispooks, but seems to be a fairly typical European deep state.
Romania/Deep state	The Romanian deep state is not yet well documented here. Ion Iliescu, the only known Romanian visitor to Le Cercle, was President of Romania for over a decade.
Russia/Deep state	The Russian Deep State, unlike the deep states of western "democracies" is occasionally reported on by the corporate media. It appears to be collaborating with the supranational deep state.
SDS	Since the 1970s, formerly separate deep states have integrated and now routinely conspire to subvert governments and international organisations. The collective effort to cover-up 9/11 saw this emerging supergroup fuse into a single Supranational Deep State, one with direct control over governments, central banks and global trafficking of drugs, weapons, people etc. Its reliance on deception, however, continues to make its long term prospects far from certain.
Saudi Arabia/Deep state	Not well documented here
Serbia/Deep state	The Serbian deep state, not very well documented here, but exposed by the 6th Integrity Initiative Leak
South Africa/Deep state	The South African deep state was installed by the Milner Group and anwered to London. The group hosted many meetings of Le Cercle and is believed to have carried out assassinations for the Supranational Deep State.
South Korea/Deep state	A deep state created and strongly dominated by the US.
Spain/Deep state	The Spanish deep state
Sweden/Deep state	The Swedish deep state involves the Wallenberg family and Wallenberg sphere.
Switzerland/Deep state	Switzerland is the place for significant deep state activities. Houses the BIS.
Turkey/Deep state	'Derin devlet' is a deep state network based in Turkey. Repeated indiscretions resulted in its partial exposure, leading to the English phrase 'deep state' to refer to the phenomenon of a 'state-within-a-state or 'shadow government'.
UK/Deep state	The British empire has long been influenced by various mostly unseen forces. These are being increasingly exposed in the 21st century. After WWI, the UK deep state increasingly came under the influence of the US deep state.
US/Deep state	The US deep state goes back centuries, but its modern configuration is fairly easily traced back to the 1963 coup which fused an alliance into a single coherent Cabal. Under the leadership of George H. W. Bush after the Watergate coup, the group became centered on the Bush family. It has been aggressively waging a "War On Terror" since 9-11 quickened the supranational deep state. In recent years it has lacked clear leadership and suffered leaks, infighting, short-termism & confusion about handling its increasingly public profile.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
"Conspiracy theorist"	“Here's the thing. There's about 150 people that run the world. Anybody who wants to go into politics, they're all fucking puppets, okay? There are 150 and they're all men that run the world - period, full stop. They control most of the important assets, they control the money flows. And these are not the tech entrepreneurs. Now they are going to get rolled over the next five to ten years by the people that are really underneath pulling the strings. And when you get behind the curtain and see how that world works, what you realize is, it is unfairly set up for them and their progeny. Now, I'm not going to say that that's something that we can rip apart. But first order of business is, I want to break through and be at that table. That's the first order of business.”	Chamath Palihapitiya	2017
Salvador Allende	“We are faced with forces that operate in the shadows, without a flag, with powerful weapons, positioned in the most varied places of influence....The aggression of the large capitalist companies aims to prevent the emancipation of the people. It represents a direct attack against the economic interests of the workers....We are facing a true frontal conflict between large corporations and states. Their fundamental decisions - political, economic and military - seem to be interfered with by global organizations that do not depend on any state and that, in the sum of their activities, do not respond to or are supervised by any Parliament, by any institution representing the collective interest. In a word, it is the entire political structure of the world that is being undermined.”	Salvador Allende	December 1972
Edward Bernays	“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country... In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”	Edward Bernays	1928
Bureaucracy	“Having worked briefly in the Canadian bureaucracy, I have observed that bureaucratic debate where power is involved tends to favor paranoid or worst-case analyses, especially those that justify budget and bureaucratic growth. Today's bureaucratic paranoia has indeed been institutionalized by what has been popularized as Vice President Cheney's 1% doctrine:- Even if there is just a 1% of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty. It's not about our analysis, as Cheney said, it's about our response. Justified or not, fact based or not, our response is what matters. As to evidence, the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn't apply. If there was even a 1% chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction, the United States must act now as if it were a certainty. This doctrine is a license for untrammeled expansion of the secret deep state.”	Peter Dale Scott
Conspiracy/Public attitudes	“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”	Woodrow Wilson	1913
Deep state/2017 Popularisation	“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.”		16 February 2017
Euan Grant	“I have the responsibility for increasing awareness of Russian, Russian speaking and Russian proxies organised crime links ith [sic.] these countries [sic.] “Deep States” nexus of political, senior bureaucracy, military and military industrial complex, big business and, of course, security and intelligence services. We prefer the term “ strategic organised crime” and believe it is not capable of being adequately deterred by conventional criminal justice procedures.”	Euan Grant	June 2018
Andrew Marr	“A final lesson is that Westminster and the state are two very different things. The state includes the NHS, national science labs, networks of experts […] I now feel we should spend less time on the distracting national puppet show and more time thinking about what I might delicately call the deeper sources of authority.”	Andrew Marr	14 August 2021
Malcolm Muggeridge	“In the eyes of posterity it will inevitably seem that, in safeguarding our freedom, we destroyed it. The vast clandestine apparatus we built up to prove our enemies' resources and intentions only served in the end to confuse our own purposes; that practice of deceiving others for the good of the state led infallibly to our deceiving ourselves; and that vast army of clandestine personnel built up to execute these purposes were soon caught up in the web of their own sick fantasies, with disastrous consequences for them and us.”	Malcolm Muggeridge	May 1966
Peggy Noonan	“I have come to wonder if we don’t have what amounts to a deep state within the outer state in the U.S. — a deep state consisting of our intelligence and security agencies, which are so vast and far-flung in their efforts that they themselves don’t fully know who’s in charge and what everyone else is doing.”	Peggy Noonan	28 October 2013
Michael Parenti	“When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.”	Michael Parenti
Vivek Ramaswamy	“I have a dream that the people we elect to run the government will be the ones who actually run the government.”	Vivek Ramaswamy
Theodore Roosevelt	“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”	Theodore Roosevelt
Leo Tolstoy	“When he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously (with that peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says, "If it were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment"), was listening to an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very erect, almost on tiptoe, with a soldier's obsequious expression on his purple face, reporting something. "Very well, then, be so good as to wait," said Prince Andrew to the general, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected when he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Boris, Prince Andrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him imploring him to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with a cheerful smile. At that moment Boris clearly realized what he had before surmised, that in the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in the military code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there was another, more important, subordination, which made this tight-laced, purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskoy. More than ever was Boris resolved to serve in future not according to the written code, but under this unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having been recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen above the general who at the front had the power to annihilate him, a lieutenant of the Guards. Prince Andrew came up to him and took his hand.”	Leo Tolstoy	1869
US/Deep state	“I join with those who assess the decay of the so-called Pax Americana into ever widening arms build-ups and military violence, in the light of the very similar decay a century ago of the so-called Pax Brittanica. We need to rescind policies that are as visibly detrimental to America and the world today as they were to Britain then. The problem is that Amnerican institutions are again in the grip of collective mania, as they were in the Palmer raids of 1919 and the McCarthy persecutions of the early 1950s. People outside government must work for a redirection of the U.S. government away from mania and illegality, like the awakening that ends the McCarthy era. But to regain control of politics, Americans must learn to understand and cope with the dark forces of the deep state. America, I try to suggest at the end [of The American Deep State] has like Britain far more to contribute to the world than violent power.”	Peter Dale Scott	2015

 

Party Member

Politician	Born	Description
Walter Veltroni	3 July 1955	Italian politician. His candidacy in the 2008 general elections obtained 33.17% of the votes, but failed to take the government.

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:5 July Seminar; Potential guest list for discussion	spooky seminar invitation list	26 February 2016	Integrity Initiative	Seminar with a mix of media, academics and lots of spooks
Document:American War Machine	book introduction	1 November 2010	Peter Dale Scott	A precis of the entire book, an analysis of the hidden mechanisms behind the exercise of real power in the Western World. The book is a culmination and synthesis of all of the author's earlier work on 'Deep Events' and the 'Deep State. Together with the work of Ola Tunander on the same subjects, it is a highly recommended for anyone seeking more than superficial understanding of the predicament of 21st Century humanity.
Document:Anatomy of the Deep State	essay	21 February 2014	Mike Lofgren	An up to date analysis of the deep state in the US from a former insider who does not oppose the official narrative of 9-11.
Document:Bloggers Under Siege - Craig Murray Charged with Contempt of Court	blog post	27 April 2020	Ludwig De Braeckeleer	From Lockerbie to the Russia Hoax, Craig Murray has of course upset people in high-places, including some who work for Intelligence Agencies.
Document:Counter-Intelligence: Spying Deters Democracy	interview	7 July 2014	Scott Noble Kim Petersen
Document:Democratic State v Deep State	essay	1 January 2008	Ola Tunander	An excellent introduction to deep politics. By clarifying the real role of the Secret Intelligence Services and the policy agenda they under firm control in most Western 'Democracies' (especially the UKUSA nations), it demonstrates the irrelevance of the party-political masquerade.
Document:Fifty Years of the Deep State	book	22 November 2013	Mark Gorton	A detailed overview of the modern US deep state which names names, the most prominent of which, George H. W. Bush, is exposed as the kingpin of the US Deep state and probable a key mover behind the 9/11 plot.
Document:Obama’s Humanitarianism as Window-Dressing for the US “Deep State” Agenda - The Case of Syria	article	18 June 2013	Elizabeth Woodworth
Document:The Deep State and 9/11	article	11 June 2008	Peter Dale Scott
Document:The Spectacle of The False Flag	book	1 March 2015	Eric Wilson
Document:The Terror Attacks in France. The Broader Geopolitical Implications	interview	10 January 2015	Umberto Pascali	Interview with Umberto Pascali – For Voice of the People, TV Sonce, Skipje, Macedonia
Document:Transnationalised Repression Parafascism and the US	article	September 1986	Peter Dale Scott

Rating

8 March 2019 Robin  Still needs work...
A solid start, but lacking polish.

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.