{"id":54728,"date":"2025-08-24T10:22:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T18:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=54728"},"modified":"2025-08-24T10:22:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T18:22:24","slug":"war-the-intelligence-community-and-the-deep-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/24\/war-the-intelligence-community-and-the-deep-state\/","title":{"rendered":"War, the Intelligence Community, and the Deep State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Reprinted from <a href=\"https:\/\/bracingviews.substack.com\/\">Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Last Tuesday, I appeared again on Judge Napolitano\u2019s show. We talked about the Russia-Ukraine War and President Trump\u2019s efforts to foster a peace deal, as well as the so-called Deep State and (briefly) the CIA.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gew8swWeoik?si=9wVqwxLG1-s5P7jY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The show\u2019s lede raises a provocative question: Can America be rid of the CIA? Anything is possible in theory; the problem is the sprawling size and enormous power of the so-called intelligence community, or IC. (This idea of \u201ccommunity\u201d was already a euphemism in the 1970s, as the movie \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/1be7fbfa-63d1-4890-b30c-1c0fbfc13487?j=eyJ1IjoiZGc1bSJ9.AtkIESPQ8gZGIxfZckZts7Nr6Ami6aEuderfNS6aYrI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">Three Days of the Condor<\/a>\u201d reveals; I\u2019ve always liked how Robert Redford\u2019s character scoffs at the \u201ccommunity\u201d conceit.)<\/p>\n<p>There are eighteen (18!) agencies that make up the IC with a combined yearly budget just north of $100 billion. For all that spending on intelligence, America has not fared well in recent wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. A bureaucracy of that size and reach is difficult to corral and control, especially since its budget keeps rising. Threat inflation is a major component of these rising budgets; you\u2019re not going to get a threat assessment from the IC that says, well, actually, America\u2019s pretty safe, let\u2019s spend money on infrastructure, education, and social uplift.<\/p>\n<p>As Chuck Schumer once said about Trump\u2019s efforts to challenge the IC, the community has \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/bfb105c4-0f7f-40c7-a35b-2f2d0f752e52?j=eyJ1IjoiZGc1bSJ9.AtkIESPQ8gZGIxfZckZts7Nr6Ami6aEuderfNS6aYrI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">six ways from Sunday<\/a>\u201d to get back at the president. That is, of course, more than worrisome. POTUS is supposed to command the IC; the IC is supposed to serve the president while upholding the U.S. Constitution. The IC shouldn\u2019t scheme to \u201cget back\u201d at the president \u2013 any president.<\/p>\n<p>My guess is that Trump has learned that lesson from Schumer. He\u2019s appeasing the IC by giving it more and more money. Meanwhile, a Trump loyalist, Tulsi Gabbard, is trying to exert a measure of control as DNI, or Director of National Intelligence. I can\u2019t imagine the in-fighting going in within the \u201ccommunity\u201d as Gabbard releases files that suggest elements within the IC put their thumbs on the scale against Trump\u2019s runs for president.<\/p>\n<p>Eighteen agencies, $100 billion, and less than impressive results suggest a deep state that is out of control and in urgent need of major reform. Meanwhile, Edward Snowden\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/8aeae55f-4f48-446b-a029-e14fbea6d919?j=eyJ1IjoiZGc1bSJ9.AtkIESPQ8gZGIxfZckZts7Nr6Ami6aEuderfNS6aYrI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">revelations<\/a> show a power structure that is more than willing to illegally spy on and surveil Americans.<\/p>\n<p>For democracy to prosper, Americans need privacy and the government should be transparent to and controllable by the people. Instead, the IC is shrouded in secrecy and Americans are the ones whose lives are transparent to and controllable by the IC.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, I\u2019m not suggesting the IC is peeking under every door \u2013 unless you\u2019re some kind of crazy dissident who believes genocide is wrong and the military-industrial complex is dangerous. You know \u2013 someone like Dwight D. Eisenhower.<\/p>\n<p><em>William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), professor of history, and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal substack is <a href=\"https:\/\/bracingviews.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow external noopener noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Bracing Views<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. Last Tuesday, I appeared again on Judge Napolitano\u2019s show. We talked about the Russia-Ukraine War and President Trump\u2019s efforts to foster a peace deal, as well as the so-called Deep State and (briefly) the CIA. The show\u2019s lede raises a provocative question: Can America be rid of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[758],"class_list":["post-54728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"Judging Freedom in America"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54728"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54733,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54728\/revisions\/54733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54728"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=54728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}