Zaza Shatirishvili, a speaker affiliated with Bidzina Ivanishvili — a Russia-enriched oligarch and Georgia’s strongman — is calling U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance a representative of the “deep state.”
His letter was disseminated by the Georgian Dream propaganda mouthpiece Imedi TV. The statement issued under Shatirishvili’s name is built entirely around conspiracy theory rhetoric. In the letter, he once again promotes the narrative that the source of problems within the European Union is the “deep state.”
The letter attributed to Shatirishvili reads:
“If we look at the signature style of how oligarchs operate, everything is unfolding exactly according to their plan. For years, they systematically dismantled Europe — and now they themselves conduct “research,” write up the “findings,” and tell us that the European Union is apparently in deep crisis. Naturally, they will once again blame their own wrongdoing on the same people — those puppet bureaucrats — who, on their orders, have been undermining the continent’s wellbeing.
When I talk about this method of operation by the “deep state,” I always recall the deeply cynical speech delivered by J.D. Vance, the U.S. Vice President, at the Munich Security Conference, where he publicly exposed the EU’s flaws. He said that the migrant crisis, the erosion of Christianity, and the disregard for freedom of speech and expression had pushed the Union into a crisis of democracy. Yet Vance somehow never attempted to identify who caused these problems — because we know full well that the “deep state” is the source of this misfortune. The very “deep state” that J.D. Vance himself represents!”
The “Global War Party” is a Georgian Dream conspiracy theory that the ruling party uses as the basis for governing the country and defining its foreign policy. Recently, Georgian Dream leaders stopped using the term “Global War Party” and replaced it with “deep state.”
Initially, Georgian Dream claimed that the “deep state” was merely the “main instrument of informal influence” of the “Global War Party,” meaning the two were separate “entities.” According to the party’s latest conspiracy narrative, however, the “deep state” and the “Global War Party” are now the same.
To date, Georgian Dream has presented no evidence whatsoever to substantiate these conspiracy claims and cannot identify who supposedly leads the “Global War Party.” In reality, the only common trait among those whom Georgian Dream labels as part of this so-called “Global War Party” is that, at various times and over various issues, they have criticized the Georgian Dream government.
More broadly, the “deep state” is a global conspiracy theory referring to a shadow governing structure in which unofficial actors purportedly play a significant role in shaping and implementing state policy.
