How often have readers here noticed the mention of a NATO occupied nation vs the non NATO occupied nation state? - Having pointed out repeatedly that there is a significant difference between the two but not sure if everyone was on the same page, it seemed clarification was in order. Along comes this article: National Leadership Styles And The “Deep State”: Trump And Hillary, at Katehon and found the explanation of the deep state very good. Entrenched in all NATO nations is a NATO bureaucracy. (We're not talking the banker entrenchment, at this time, though it is present and surely embedded along with the NATO bureaucracy)And a deep state apparatus Andrew Korbyko wrote his piece with regard to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. I'm less interested in that comparison and more interested in the description of the deep state.Exposing The “Deep State”
The first thing that readers need to understand is that the “deep state” isn’t some sort of secret ‘conspiratorial’ concept, but rather just another way of referring to the run-of-the-mill permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies within a state. Every single country has these, and they’re the underlying ‘behind the scenes’ infrastructure that maintains policy continuity amidst the inevitable periods of democratic leadership transition.
This is an obvious fact to anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention to reality
To put it another way, the reason why many countries typically (operative word, and the conditional of which will be explained soon) retain foreign policy consistency after a new National Leader or party has been voted in after elections is because nothing actually changes inside the decision-making bureaucratic apparatus itself aside from the Secretaries/Ministers of each respective entity. Nearly every single person who was working in the military, intelligence, and diplomatic spheres continues to retain their job regardless of who wins the national election, so it makes sense why a country would continue along its given policy trajectory.
Sometimes, though, it’s natural for the “deep state” to come up with novel policy changes in adapting to or shaping certain circumstances, and when implemented, such modifications are commonly referred to as “pivots”. All that the “deep state” has to do is get the National Leader to trust in their expertise and agree with the given recommendation, which is usually nothing more than a formality, after which the initiative is signed into policy and promulgated.
It's a straightforward as that. Mr Korbyko breaks this down further differentiating between :Active and Passive Leaders.
Try as the “deep state” might, the final say about whether or not a said policy is continued or enters into force depends on the respective national leader that’s in power, and therein lays the relevancy to personality differences. Broadly speaking, National Leaders can be categorized into being either active or passive, with the first group being subdivided into Active Resistors, Active Formulators, and the Active Visionaries
I would go a bit further then active and passive and suggest that a leader's decision to continue or alter policy relies additionally on the power granted to the office of that leader.Examples: *President Erdogan- is a largely ceremonial leader with no real executive powers he cannot truly alter the policies of the deep state.* President Obama: Is indeed a passive leader- He has executive powers, granted to him by the position of his office, yet happily continues on with the policies of the embedded deep state Of course President Obama's passive leadership may be due to this:“Deep State” Pushback
Attempting to resist or transform the “deep state” usually isn’t an easy task, and the struggle that comes with it is sometimes too much for National Leaders to bear. The existing establishment has three primary ways in which they oppose Active Leaders that defy their dictates. Beginning with the least intense and progressing to the most extreme, they are:
Scandal:“Deep state” representatives, usually those of the internal security services (“secret police”) like the FBI and external SIGINT ones such as the NSA, can engineer situations that are either directly embarrassing to the National Leader or implicate one or some of his/her close colleagues, thereby sending a discrete message that it’s best for them to step back from whatever it is that they were tinkering with or resisting and opt instead for a more hands-off policy.
Competition: Other times the “deep state” – typically in follow-up coordination with the scandal response – throws their support behind ‘civilian’ candidates to compete with the National Leader. These can be people that seek to do so directly (such as what the plan was for Khodorkovsky to do against Putin) or indirectly, with the second one being exemplified by the “deep state’s” efforts to overturn the ruling party’s parliamentary majority and thereby neutralize the resistant or interfering leader. Direct competition aims for full regime change, while indirect competition strives for its partial implementation.
*** Though Mr Korbyko does not include coup, I would insert it between competition and assassinationCoup: Egypt- Military pushes Morsi out Fireworks burst over Tahrir Square after Army Statement & Egypt's Coup: Game Over? Not by a long shot!Coup: always keeping in mind the possibility of a coup in Turkey- December 2013: Egypt and Turkey: Destabilization and Destabilization***
Assassination:The absolute most drastic action that the “deep state” could take in pushing back against Resistant, Formative, and Visionary Leaders is to assassinate them, such as what many suspect the CIA did to Kennedy in 1963.
Of course read the entire article at the link above!