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Deep State - Coggle Diagram

- - - - States / Civil Societies Highly centralized, formal legal systems, taxation, bureaucracy. Monopoly on legitimate use of force; laws apply to all, not just kin. Example: Roman Empire, Mesopotamian city-states, modern nation-states.
      - Consolidation of people came mainly through political-military structures, i.e., empires and kingdoms.
      - Roman Empire unified the Italian peninsula, Gaul, and much of Western Europe under law, taxation, and administration.
    - - The shift to cities and codified law (one god, one law for all) happened earlier and more intensively here than in much of Europe.
      - Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians developed legal codes and temple-centered authority.
      - Hebrew tribes eventually unified under the worship of one God (YHWH) and centralized monarchy (Saul, David, Solomon).
- - - - Bolshevik tendencies: centralized control, tight inner circles, loyalty over transparency, belief in a small elite reshaping society.
      - It’s not that they’re Bolsheviks in content (they’re not building socialism), but in form — the tactic of a disciplined, insider elite manipulating larger institutions for their own agenda.
      - Wedel argues that today’s “flexians” (her term for new power brokers) operate in a similar way: small, networked groups manipulating state institutions from behind the scenes.
      - Neocons then used tight intellectual/political networks to steer U.S. policy (especially Iraq).
      - Wedel likens this to Bolshevik-style entryism and capture — small group, big institutional leverage.
        
        Entryism: a small, disciplined group infiltrates a larger institution (party, union, bureaucracy) and gradually steers it from within.
        
        Capture: once inside, they dominate key levers (committees, funding, policy agenda), effectively hollowing out the host and redirecting it.
        
        It’s parasitic in form — instead of building mass legitimacy, the group leverages existing structures.
      - Minority Capture
        
        Bolsheviks 1917: They were a minority faction of Russian socialists, but they infiltrated soviets and outmaneuvered rivals until they controlled the councils → then claimed “we represent the workers.”
        
        Neoconservatives (Wedel’s point): A relatively small set of policy intellectuals (many ex-Trotskyists) entered think tanks, advisory boards, and government committees.
        
        By being unified and relentless, they steered U.S. foreign policy toward Iraq even though the broader establishment wasn’t clamoring for that war.
        
        Lenin’s return to Russia in 1917: The German General Staff’s reasoning: Lenin and the Bolsheviks would destabilize Russia’s Provisional Government, which would help Germany on the Eastern Front.
        
        German geopolitical meddling + Bolshevik entryism
      - flex nets
        close-knit networks that guard and share information
      - Western socio-economic and "democratic" political systems look increasingly similar to many communist and post-communist societies in the ways that they merge state and private power
- - - - Fascist regimes (Italy, Germany, Spain) did indeed fuse public resources with private interests.
      - Example: Mussolini’s Italy used state infrastructure to prop up friendly industries; Nazi Germany gave huge contracts to firms like Krupp or IG Farben.
      - 👉 So yes, public infrastructure bent to private interests often resembles one trait of fascist economies, but academically it’s more precise to call it cronyism / state capture rather than fascism itself.
- - - - Source of power: Control over credit, debt, and money flows (usury).
      - Governance: Can manipulate or extract from others, but often lacks experience in administration, infrastructure, or sustaining productive economies.
      - Limitation: Their “power” depends on coercion or dependence; without underlying prosperity, they can’t maintain long-term stable governance.
      - Historical parallel: Some elites in late medieval Italian city-states (money-lending families) could dominate politics temporarily, but states eventually relied on broader economic management.
        Medieval banking families: legal, integrated into state; used wealth to influence politics and administration.
    - - Source of power: Wealth from commerce, trade networks, production.
      - Governance: Skilled in negotiation, logistics, administration, and fostering prosperity.
      - Advantage: Can sustain long-term economic and political institutions because their authority is tied to creating real wealth, not extracting it via interest.
      - Historical parallel: Babylonian administration, Phoenician city-states, Venetian Republic — trade and bureaucracy create lasting control.