I'd ask what you disagree with, but you're calling an open-ended question an argument so I doubt it would be a productive discussion. I doubt you'd have had the same initial response if I'd said 'decision makers in the security and intelligence branches of the civil service'.
Incidentally, I think a lot of insights can be gotten into psychological warfare if one likens it to cellular biology and the games viruses and engineers play to get a cell to accept foreign code. What we're seeing here is an excellent example of an immune response that looks for 'tells' of hostile activity causing an allergic reaction.
> I doubt you'd have had the same initial response if I'd said 'decision makers in the security and intelligence branches of the civil service'.
I doubt I'd have had the same response if you'd used any kind of phrasing that demonstrated the most basic level of competence in the subject matter. Talking about "the military arm of the deep state" is like claiming to understand aerospace engineering and then talking unironically with a straight face about "the spinny thing on the front of the plane."
Incidentally, I think a lot of insights can be gotten into psychological warfare if one likens it to cellular biology and the games viruses and engineers play to get a cell to accept foreign code. What we're seeing here is an excellent example of an immune response that looks for 'tells' of hostile activity causing an allergic reaction.