The "Deep State."

 There is much talk about the “deep state” in the run up to our presidential election.  I suppose that there are several different definitions of the’DEEP STATE’ depending on who is talking about it, but I see the most common definition as being our bureaucracy.  I was part of that bureaucracy for three decades, three decades ago, and I have some very definite opinions about it as seen from inside and outside of it.  None of my opinions will please anybody, including myself, but that is true of a lot of other facts of life as well.

Before I go any further, I should note that I firmly believe that our society needs a strong, able bureaucracy.  Life is far too complicated, our population is far too large and spread over far too much territory, to not have a strong bureaucracy.  Having said that, I also believe that we have overdone it in spades.   Our unelected, bloated bureaucracy has involved itself too deeply in our daily lives and plays too large a role in deciding how we live our lives.  Were I able to wave a magic wand and reorder our world, I would increase the role of individual responsibility, and reduce the role of government.  Unfortunately, I am not able to do either, nor am I able to set in motion societal forces that might accomplish that objective.

We are stuck with an enormous bureaucracy and nobody is going to destroy it, much as some of us, including former President Trump might desire.  The reason is to be found inside the American people.  We are no longer the hardscrabble populace that came out of the Great Depression.  Today, we are a naive people that are trying their utmost to create the perfect state.  One in which all people live harmoniously with one another, believing in the same principals, and submissive to the greater good.  We need a strong bureaucracy to ensure that we all follow the rules.   Our problem is that we do not all share the same definition of utopia.

My own experience in government has reinforced my thinking on this subject.  I was never a member of any clique, or follower of any important personality.  My colleagues could not understand my comparatively rapid rise in rank.  I was almost always the youngest officer in any rank that I held, and I was usually promoted at the first opportunity.   I had no political benefactors, I was not wealthy, I was not particularly intelligent, and I did not enthrall my colleagues with brilliant analysis.  I actually displeased several important personalities in the career service and was known to be an independent, if unintelligent, thinker.  I just progressed in rank rapidly, no matter which political party was in control of government at the time.  I never received plum assignments and was always shunted off to impossible situations like war and natural disaster.  On reflection, I now understand that I was useful because I was not associated with any particular group and was always available for any nasty job that nobody else wanted.  I was promoted not because I was right about anything.  I was promoted because I was useful to the group in power at the time.

I inevitably spent a lot of my career in troubled situations and came to agree with critics of the Foreign Service in a lot of different situations.  I too frequently saw my colleagues through the eyes of a CIA operative, or a battalion commander, or a squadron commander, and found the words of my Foreign Service colleagues, far too often, to be empty pontifications rather than brilliant analysis of the situation on the ground.  The people with whom I was working in Viet Nam, or Turkey, or Stuttgart saw me as part of a rival organization and my position forced me to think about problems differently than my colleagues sitting in an air-conditioned office on the fifth floor of a nice, air-conditioned office building in Washington DC. 

Were I to be able to wave a magic wand and remove the problem, I would require any government official that might have influence over foreign policy to have had actual experience with the nasty side of war.  Were I knowledgable enough about the issues involved in other  areas of government, I would impose parallel requirements.  Too often, the bureaucrat making the decision is too ignorant of the real world that he or she is attempting to regulate.  These people are not the enemy, they are just not smart enough for the task that they are attempting to perform.  Our effort should not be to destroy the Deep State.  It should be to dramatically improve our bureaucracy.  I should also note that I would significantly reduce it in size as well.