Book Review - Aaron Good (2022) American Exception: Empire and the Deep State. New York: Skyhorse Publishing

In other words, Good contends that the United States consists of the public state – that is, the democratic state – the security state and the deep state. [...] The security state consists of the entities charged with maintaining international and domestic security, such as the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). [...] Good writes that Truman was essential in establishing the institutions of the national security state overseeing the founding of the CIA through the National Security Act of 1947 and the promotion of war hysteria by the Committee on the Present Danger, beginning in 1950, which legitimized a permanent war economy. [...] In the wake of the Kennedy assassination, Johnson attempted to appease the deep state through reversing Kennedy’s policy of détente, intensifying the Vietnam War and unleashing the CIA. [...] The criminality that lies at the core of the politics of empire has grave consequences for the people of the world.