What I offer below is an attempt to define a complex, dynamic system in simple terms. I ask your forgiveness in advance if I have overlooked some key variables.

I place the birth of the Deep State in the early 1990s, during the Presidency of Bill Clinton. It was during Clinton's presidency that the US government, especially in the areas of intelligence and the military, started outsourcing jobs that once were classified as civil service. Let me give you a current example. Previously, the annual report on international terrorism (it was called Patterns of Global Terrorism during my time in government, but now goes under the name, Country Reports on Terrorism) was prepared by analysts at the Counter Terrorism Center. After 9-11, that job was transferred to the National Counter Terrorism Center. But, sometime in the last ten years, that work was contracted to a consulting firm in Bethesda, Maryland — Development Services Group, Inc.

Here's another example: One of my bosses at CIA, a gentleman named Randolph "Randy" Pherson, retired in 2000:

and became Pherson Associates' government work as President from 2003-2021 and served as CEO of Globalytica, a subsidiary of Pherson specializing in classes and publications for international and private industry clients.

His outfit also did work for the CIA — work that previously would have been done by analysts. He and his wife made a good amount of money. I don't begrudge them, just using them as one example of how one facet of the system works.

One of the consequences of shifting government jobs to contractors is that government spending expanded rapidly and made a lot of former CIA officers millionaires. Pherson Associates is small potatoes compared to companies like Booz Allen and SAIC. Both have profited enormously during the last 30+ years providing contract employees to do US government jobs.

This is not confined to CIA and DOD. Let me tell you about nurses at NIH. There has been a freeze on hiring new nurses at NIH. To meet the demand and serve the patients that receive treatment at NIH, the nursing department is compelled to hire contract nurses. A contract nurse costs the US government twice the salary they would pay if the government simply hired a new nurse.