Deep state, as popularly understood, is a secret and unauthorized network of power, operating independently of a state’s political leadership, and in pursuit of its own agenda and goals. Many national leaders have invoked fears of the deep state to spread misinformation and/ or elicit sympathy. Donald Trump has done it often; in 2017, Trump patronised a website 4chan, which promoted the idea that Trump was waging a secret war against a cabal of satanic cannibalistic paedophiles within Hollywood, the Democratic Party, and the so-called ‘deep state’ within the United States government.

This theory, expanding in content and geographic reach, resulted in several protests, as well as some violent criminal incidents. Trump, as President, used the term deep state, to denounce whistle-blowers and leakers from the US intelligence community. Addressing an election rally in March 2023, Trump said: “Either the deep state destroys America or we destroy the deep state.” One of Trump’s electioneve promises is to “dismantle the deep state” by stripping thousands of federal employees of their civil service protections, allowing them to be fired at will. In UK, the Civil Service has been called the deep state, pursuing its own policies, regardless of the Government.

Tony Blair, former PM reportedly said: “You cannot underestimate how much they believe it’s their job to actually run the country and to resist the changes put forward by people they dismiss as ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ politicians.” For Pakistan, the deep state is the army which calls the shots in all important matters, including starting a war in Kargil, without informing the civilian leadership. Other countries, like Turkey, where the term ‘deep state’ originated, have differing definitions of the term. Rahul Gandhi, speaking at the Ideas for India Conference in UK, posited that the deep state, in partnership with the CBI and ED were intent on ‘chewing’ the Indian state. During the recent elections social media liberally blamed the ‘deep state’ for a number of fiascos.

It is fashionable to blame the deep state for inexplicable instances of disturbances, violence and even murders, authorship of which cannot be attributed to any of the usual suspects. Thus, after the 26/11 attack in Mumbai, Pakistan President Asif Zardari was quick to lay the blame on ‘non-State’ actors, though later it was conclusively proved that the cowardly attack took place at the behest of Pakistan’s ISI. This is a general trend; the American public could not reconcile the official narrative of a purely defensive foreign policy with the frequent mounting of secret offensive operations, once they became aware of the reality of the US Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, and American intervention in Guatemala. Politicians, then, conveniently blamed secretive intelligence officers, who purportedly kept elected public representatives in the dark, while carrying out their nefarious activities.

But in the information age, when nothing can be kept secret for long, it has emerged that the deep state was a bogey ~ a convenient shield for a country’s pursuit of realpolitik. Politicians, often change their positions, according to prevailing circumstances, and their promises and assertions cannot be taken as gospel truth. For example, after declassification of the US Intelligence Report titled “Assessing the Saudi Government’s Role in the Killing of Jamal Khashoggi,” which unequivocally stated: “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” and the US Senate’s unanimous resolution, holding Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman personally responsible for the murder of Khashoggi, and public demands for strict action against Salman, Joe Biden, as a presidential candidate, promised to make the Saudis pay a price for their role in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, and also to redefine the US-Saudi relationship.

However, after Biden was elected President, the White House started insisting that punishment of Mohammed bin Salman was never on the table, and to drive home the obvious, Biden even made a State visit to Saudi Arabia. The gullible would attribute this U-turn to the deep state, forgetting the fact that no US President would like to antagonise Saudi Arabia, a country with almost unlimited oil resources, and a US client of long standing, over a moral issue. There are many precedents of the US ignoring domestic sentiments to preserve its relations with Saudi Arabia.

Inquiries into the 9/11 attack on New York had revealed that all 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian nationals and there was some evidence of direct involvement of Saudi officials in the attack. Yet, President Bush went only after Afghanistan which was pounded into dust. A Joint Congressional Committee conducting an inquiry into the performance of US Intelligence agencies vis-à-vis the 9/11 bombings, touched upon the possible involvement of Saudi Arabian government officials. The 832-page report of the Committee was released in December 2002. However, the US administration ensured that 28 pages of the Committee’s report were never published.

The redacted pages and the unanswered question of Saudi involvement left the victims’ families fuming and demanding an independent inquiry. Contrarily, the US attacked Iraq on its fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction. Here again realpolitik triumphed over morality in international relations. The lesson is that most countries, including the US, which lectures the rest of the world on a ‘rulesbased’ order, are avid practitioners of realpolitik, which puts national interest first ~ ahead of morality, or anything else. Reports released by the human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders (“110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild,” September 2022 and “Patrol and Persuade: A follow-up investigation to 110 Overseas,” December 2022) reveal that four Chinese public security bureaus established 102 overseas police service stations in 53 countries across the world, with the aim of interference in the internal affairs of host countries, and intimidation of overseas critics.

Investigations launched by the US, Canada, UK, Netherlands, and 10 other countries revealed that such stations were targeting domestic persona non grata, like activists, human rights lawyers, protesters, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and students. Inter alia, such police stations armtwisted overseas Chinese to return to face trial. According to Safeguard Defenders, 230,000 people suspected of fraud and telecom fraud, were successfully persuaded to return to China. On questioning, China has officially denied the existence of any overseas police station, insisting that these were service centres to help overseas Chinese renew residency cards, driver’s licenses, and national ID cards.

During Vladimir Putin’s 24-year rule, more than twenty Kremlin critics, journalists and defected spies have died mysteriously ~ most of them abroad. In many cases, rare poisons that all but defied identification were used. Israel has been more direct, killing targets abroad by laserguided missiles, helicopters, drones or assassins armed with guns. Hundreds of Palestinians and Iranians have been killed, with the Israeli Supreme Court condoning such killings. Recently, in separate incidents, more than 20 Khalistani activists met gory ends in Pakistan, some few in UK, and at least one, Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Then, there was an alleged plot to murder Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, another Khalistani activist, in the USA. During elections, senior leaders including the defence minister, seemed to suggest that India had a policy of killing terrorists, shielded by Pakistan.

But what was clearly election rhetoric was taken as State policy by the West, which extrapolated it to the Nijjar and Pannun cases. In a provocative act, the Canadian Parliament paid homage to Nijjar, observing a minute’s silence. Similarly, a number of US Senators are pushing the US Government to act against India in the Pannun case. Significantly, Pannun is a designated terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

At a time when International Law has become almost toothless, and relations between nations have become entirely transactional, and respect for the other country’s sovereignty is observed more in the breach, no one should fault India on its response to those who indulge in terrorism on Indian soil, and attack Indian diplomatic establishments and Indian citizens abroad. Probably the much-hyped response from the US and Canada is only to warn India that it is not powerful enough to disturb Western hegemony. Finally, behind the courtly gestures and the silver tongues of diplomats, it is only national interest that powers international relations. As Lord Palmerston, the British PM had said more than one hundred and fifty years ago: “We have no eternal allies, and we have not perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)