Fulltime novelist, sometime flâneur, former CIA https://nitter.cf/t.co/5hE2BPEVmK
San Francisco Bay Area
Joined March 2009
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Whoo-hoo, THE SYSTEM is out now! Here's its origin story...
The world you live in is just a sugar-coated topping. There is another world beneath it. The real world.
—Blade.
Before going on to make a living as a novelist, I spent three years in a covert position in the CIA. At the time, I had a typically skewed understanding of how power is exercised in America, both domestically and abroad. But as I learned more about how, why, and by and for whom power in America is really wielded, I began to realize that the world I’d always believed in was, as Blade put it in the eponymous movie, “a sugar-coated topping.”
Flash forward to the last eight years or so, a time during which the phrase deep state (or call it the military industrial complex, the administrative state, the bureaucratic state, the blob, etc) has become en vogue not just on the American left, where it first gained currency, but in the wider discourse, as well. To which my response is:
What took you so long?
And thus THE SYSTEM, which represents the culmination of all I saw of the culture of the deep state during my time with CIA; my understanding of the real nature of American power as shaped by years of obsessive reading, writing, and speaking on the topic; and everything I’ve learned about the craft of storytelling from over two decades as a novelist and screenwriter.
THE SYSTEM is something of a departure for me. For one thing, while the story has all the sex, it’s driven less by killing. Its fuel is more the crooked timber of humanity mixed with the kind of power that shapes all our lives today. In this sense, I suppose you could say THE SYSTEM is a bit more serious than my other books (though the Livia Lonenovels all deal with human trafficking—hardly a frivolous topic). Luckily there’s no inherent contradiction between delicious and nutritious, a case I once made in an article for NPR about Orwell’s 1984—a novel that can be read as a terrific thriller but is of course also far more. And while THE SYSTEM is certainly political, it isn’t partisan. In fact, I call it post-partisan, because it reflects my view that Dem/GOP and left/right are increasingly counterproductive ways of accurately understanding how power in contemporary America is really acquired, expanded, and exercised.
It’s been said that the best detective novels are about not just how the detective works the case, but how the case works the detective. Similarly, on a dramatic and human level, THE SYSTEM depicts not only what America’s system of power is and how it functions, but also what it does to its members—how it warps their outlook, their ideals, and their values the more they advance within it.
Or, to quote Nietzsche, “When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you…”
Valeria Velez is about to gaze into the abyss of American power. THE SYSTEM depicts what happens when the abyss gazes back.
I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Best,
Barry
We seem to be living in an age where laughing at oneself is increasingly rare. But even if I were MAGA, I'd find this funny (I thought Let's Go Brandon was funny, too). The reaction of the Fox guy is so perfect...
Why do warmongers keep bleating this way long after everyone knows the war is lost (Pentagon Papers, Afghanistan Papers, etc)? Because then when the inevitable happens, they get to shift blame with "cut and run" accusations. The cynicism is breathtaking.
Have warmonger "Finish the job" and "Stay the course" admonitions ever been associated with success? Or only with even more suffering, death, and destruction en route to an even more costly defeat?
A pleasure meeting you @PatrickBedwell and likewise @AdamPlantinga!
Great listening to @AdamPlantinga and @barryeisler discuss real life, writing fiction, hope, and purpose.
Adam’s new book, Dark County, hit the bookshelves today.
Perfect to drop in the bags of those discriminating trick-or-treaters! 🎃
Barry Eisler retweeted
When George Washington was inaugurated in 1789, he wore a relatively plain brown frock coat. To the modern eye, the garment may look fancy, but it was relatively constrained for a man of Washington's position.
Affluent Americans at the time tended to wear European fabrics, as centuries of textile tradition on that side of the Atlantic meant that their materials were finer, silkier, and more luxurious. Those who could afford to wear such materials often did, not just because they were more comfortable, but because they signaled status.
Washington rejected this convention for his inauguration, opting instead for a plain brown frock coat made from an American-made material, specifically one produced by a relatively new upstart in Connecticut. It's also notable that his outfit for that day was considerably more restrained than those of leaders in other Western nations.
For instance, check out this outfit on George III (slide one). In this 1762 coronation painting, we can see the British monarch wearing a gold damask coat with a velvet mantle lined and edged with ermine and trimmed in gold. Even his shoes featured solid gold buckles.
Washington opted for something simpler because he wanted to send two political messages. First, he wanted to support domestic industry (hence his request that the garment be made from American woolen broadcloth).
Second, he understood that the US was supposed to be a democratic republic, not a monarchy. Back in Europe, monarchs wore fancy ceremonial attire to reinforce their position in society. Washington, by contrast, chose something more restrained, signaling that he was not governing through divine right but rather through consent of the people.
Irish-born architect James Holban also understood this when he designed the White House in the Neoclassical style, drawing from Georgian and Palladian architecture. Neoclassicism was a rejection of Rococo, which had been fashionable among European monarchs and aristocrats in the preceding decades.
Most people will know Rococo from the photos of the lavish French palaces erected during the reign of Louis XV. Much like the elaborate ceremonial attire of European monarchs, these interiors were meant to impress upon people the wealth and power of European leaders. The visual grandeur reinforced the idea that these people fundamentally occupied a different social station from those they governed.
To be sure, the White House was much nicer than what ordinary Americans at the time would have occupied. But much like Washington's inauguration outfit, Hoban's design was meant to balance the dignity of the office with the republican ideal that political authority ultimately comes from the people. Our leaders are not above us; they are here to serve us.
That is why the White House was decorated in this relatively restrained way for almost 250 years, changing only recently. I have seen some on here suggest that glorifying the White House is meant to glorify the state, and thus the citizens. But this logic was historically used by dictators abroad, not US presidents.
See also the Japanese concept of wabi sabi.
Of course this whole thing is absurd but Bessent has a fair point--anyone behind the Obama presidential library abomination has surrendered all right to opine about anyone else's taste
FINE DINING: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just dined at The Cheesecake Factory today and called out Barack Obama for his HIDEOUS library saying that it "looks like Darth Vader’s tomb."
Bessent ate the French dip cheeseburger and explained to Fox Business that the "Martha’s Vineyard set" should try it.
Barry Eisler retweeted
Let’s go through the peace deals Zelenskyy rejected.
• Istanbul agreement, 2022
Ukraine needed to refuse NATO accession, reduce the army, Russia would withdraw from the Kyiv reg., possibly from the Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. At that point the scale of destruction was still limited and the number of dead was far lower. In April 2022 Zelenskyy declined the deal.
• End of 2022
Russian forces withdrew from part of the Kherson region. Zelenskyy traveled to meet Biden and, acc. to my sources, later confirmed by Mr. Blinken in the New York Times, persuaded the WH to continue the war. The precise terms of any proposed deal remain unknown, but sources indicate there was readiness to declare at least a ceasefire.
• Beginning of 2023
Through unofficial channels between the United States and Russia, an understanding took shape: Putin agreed to withdraw to the borders that existed before the full-scale invasion—freeing nearly everything conquered that year—in exchange for Ukraine’s refusal of NATO accession and recognition of Crimea as Russian. Zelenskyy and Yermak refused. Since then nearly a million people have been killed or wounded, several million have become refugees, parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions have been occupied, more of Zaporizhzhia has been taken, Kherson lies in ruins, the Chernihiv and Sumy regions face constant shelling, Kyiv itself has become almost a front-line city, the energy system has been destroyed, businesses cannot operate, exports have stalled, and the country is degrading.
• July 2024
An arrangement that began with an energy ceasefire, modeled on the Istanbul understandings and mediated through the Middle East. While negotiations were under way, Zelenskyy also planned the Kursk operation, which ultimately disrupted all the arrangements.
• March 2025
After the Oval Office clash between Trump and Zelenskyy, European leaders gathered in London in early March. The British government stated that a number of options were on the table and that Ukraine had to choose. As always, nothing came of it.
Whether Putin was prepared each time to implement any agreements remains unknown, yet on several occasions he carried out what he had promised. Does this remove his responsibility for the deaths, the horrors, and the destruction in Ukraine? No.
But the country is degrading, the state apparatus is degrading, and corruption finishes what Putin’s missiles, drones, and bombs did not destroy. Inhumanity has effectively become a state strategy and a national ideology promoted at every turn.
Ukraine simply cannot win this way—there are neither economic, nor demographic, nor any other grounds for it. Therefore, if Zelenskyy does not agree to a deal with realistic terms now, Ukraine will be forced to capitulate. And that is deeply alarming, because it can actually cost the country its independence and sovereignty.
Some great resources here from @wimdemeere on how to handle an increasingly entropic world...
wimsblog.com/2026/01/survivi…
I've eaten at Cheesecake Factory probably a dozen times and like it fine. I thought Obama's joke was weak because it required too much connective thought, but did it really offend anyone? That is, does anyone identify with CF such that an insult to CF feels an insult to them?
Barry Eisler retweeted
Vivek Ramaswamy, Flavio Bolsonaro, and the Corrosive “Never Apologize” Culture
What happens to a political system when admitting error is vilified as weakness, refusing to apologize is venerated as courage, and shamelessness is embraced as a virtue?
Barry Eisler retweeted
The ugly truth about France and some of the other European countries currently in turmoil - and which none of the politicians want to admit because it'd be political suicide - is that you can't solve the problem by going after immigrants (as the right asserts) or the rich (as the left asserts), but you could solve it by going after the old.
One extraordinary statistic for you: people over 60 in France, a quarter of the population, own 60% of France's wealth, non-financial and financial (ofce.fr/pdf/revue/2025/3-192…).
And here is another crazy statistic:
that same quarter of the population, those above 60, receive nearly two-thirds of all social spending by the French government (previssima.fr/actualite/prot…) - which is famously among the highest in the world (France's government spending is an insane 57.3% of GDP).
Last statistic: they make up about 40% of voters because they're a third of registered voters (insee.fr/fr/statistiques/266…), and they turn out far more than anyone else (franceinfo.fr/elections/sond…).
Put our 3 statistics together and there's almost a bit of an apartheid situation here: the old own most of the country's wealth, collect most of the social spending and have the political power to keep it that way.
Which makes them a de-facto rentier class, living off assets and transfers paid for by younger generations.
And, of course, at the risk of stating a truism, the future is built by the young. Yet France keeps effectively taking money away from them to give it to those whose working lives are already behind them - and need the money far less since they already own the country's wealth.
What about inheritance, I hear you ask? That's the funniest/saddest aspect: given that life expectancy has kept rising, the French now inherit a home at 54 on average. The most common case is someone in their 80s leaving it to heirs in their 50s, in effect the very old transferring wealth to the about-to-be old (insee.fr/fr/statistiques/fic…).
You can add this to our earlier apartheid statement: on top of all the rest, even when the old finally let go of their wealth, it stays within their own "camp".
That's my personal situation, incidentally: I'm 42, my father is 71 and he is starting to look at ways to pass things on to me and my siblings, when our professional lives are already well settled, so it'll arrive when it changes things the least, which is pretty much the French system in a nutshell.
Now, I get that there'd be some unfairness in going after them: they paid into the system their entire working lives, playing by the rules of a social contract that told them if they paid up they'd collect at the end. Changing the rules now means breaking that promise, which is admittedly unfair.
But there's no magic wealth tree in any society: you can only take it where it is. That's the way most major societal transformations end up happening. They're often triggered by a catastrophic event (the so-called "four horsemen": mass-mobilisation war, revolution, state collapse, plague) BUT what really drives change is a transfer: wealth gets pried from the privileged class who've been sitting on it and handed to those who'll build what comes next.
So, in theory and in an ideal world, you can do without the catastrophic event and directly proceed with the transfer...
The fact that in France, and elsewhere in Europe, it's the youth protesting is probably no coincidence - even though they don't frame it as a generational fight. And even though, cruel irony, the left politicians many of them march behind promise to bring the retirement age back to 60 (lcp.fr/actualites/legislativ…), which would make the situation even worse.
Let's say they understand intuitively that the system is stacked against them, even if they haven't yet figured out how. And politicians are obviously doing what politicians do, meaning pandering to the people who actually vote, while pointing the young towards easier - and politically convenient - scapegoats.
To be clear I'm not saying it's the only problem in France, VERY far from it. I'm also not saying that all old people in France live a lavish lifestyle at the expense of younger generations: there are also plenty of very poor retirees who, if anything, would deserve more.
What I am saying is that it's probably the biggest elephant in the room: everyone can see it, nobody dares mention it - no politician, from any side, wants to run on cutting grandma's pension - and it makes every other problem harder to fix.
Fascinating article about art on and around the Salton Sea, one of the locations I used in All The Devils. Make sure to watch the video too!
tablethotels.com/magazine/en…
Barry Eisler retweeted
FT reports that in early 2023 an unofficial channel floated a deal under which Putin agreed to pull Russian forces back to the pre-24 Feb 2022 line in exchange for Ukraine dropping NATO membership and recognising Russian control of Crimea (plus a land corridor). Zelenskyy and Yermak reportedly refused even to discuss territorial concessions, believing they could secure better terms on the battlefield.
Mediators say the US also declined to back the channel. Participants later called it a missed chance for a settlement more favourable to Ukraine than what followed.
Now, imagine how many lives would be saved, the energy sector would not be in ruins, the economy, democracy would be preserved if the deal happened back then...
TERRIBLE, DISGUSTING, INUMAN.
ft.com/content/dcb57f30-bbfe…
My latest on Substack, riffing on @RnaudBertrand's musings on AI, its impact, and what makes us human. Link in first reply.
