The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government - Chapter 14

The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government by Mike Lofgren (Audiobook)

From chapter 14:

The Deep State: Evolving Toward Extinction?

The mortal danger of wildfire to a herd of deer is what a half century of disastrous involvement in the Middle East ought to represent to American policy makers. But it does not. Being in favor of the Iraq War may have been objectively wrong, but it was an astute career move for many government operatives and contractors. Wall Street CEOs failed to understand that leveraging their portfolios with derivatives contracts was the equivalent of giving a child a loaded pistol, but with the exception of a handful of people like Richard Fuld, the main Wall Street players are still in their jobs, leveraging up for the next financial bubble.

Nature provides numerous examples of species whose traits have evolved such that they become maladapted to their environments. The extinct Irish elk’s outsized antlers became more of a hindrance to its survival than a benefit: during periods of peak antler growth, the animal experienced osteoporosis. In a similar fashion, the military-industrial complex’s pampered, privileged position in society and its cost- is-no-object mentality, along with its rigid and bureaucratized hierarchy, have made it a less effective force in accomplishing its overriding purpose: fighting and winning wars. That goal has become subsidiary to mastering Washington politics, maintaining the cash flow to contractors, and offering senior personnel second careers in industry. These maladaptations affect the quality both of personnel and equipment. This lengthy catalog of dysfunctions in our governing institutions both public and private, and in the elites that control them, points to a system that is not sustainable in the long term. It is also not that unusual in light of history. The normal way mature power structures try to maintain themselves is by redefining their vices as virtues and their mistakes as harmless mulligans that should not be counted on the scorecard. Disasters like Vietnam and Iraq no more undermine the legitimacy of the elites who engineered them, at least in their own eyes, than the sinking of the Spanish Armada undermined Philip II’s unshakable belief that he was on the throne by the grace of God. It is the strategy of deny and move on. But it cannot go on.

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