How the West got ‘Deep State’-pilled

Conspiracies about ‘elites’ secretly controlling politics are nothing new, but the use of the Turkish ‘Deep State’ concept is.

Truss told Steve Bannon at CPAC that the ‘Deep State’ was responsible for her demise as PM.

There is a paranoia emerging at the highest levels of Western politics: a conspiratorial belief seemingly held by elite politicians from Donald Trump to Liz Truss that they are not really in charge of the countries they have led. Instead, forces operating below the surface of the state and answerable to nobody are pulling the strings: forces they now ambiguously call the Deep State.

The term ‘Deep State’ has an interesting history, coming out of the murky world of Turkish political espionage of the late 20th century. During the Cold War, the CIA helped to train and arm paramilitary groups around the world as a stay-behind force in the event of a Soviet invasion. In Italy, this was called Operation Gladio, while in Turkey, its local offshoot was known as the Counter-Guerilla.

The concept of the Deep State grew from this history, and became common currency in Turkey in the early 21st century, as the old secular nationalist military state structure made way for a new one, run by a neoliberal religious alliance of new men, epitomised by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In a series of high profile trials between 2008–2016, members of the old elite were accused of being part of a secret organisation known as Ergenekon…