President Trump's allegations that former President Barack Obama tapped his phone and his assertions that the bureaucracy is leaking secrets to discredit him are the latest signs of a White House preoccupation with a deep state" working to thwart the Trump presidency. "A deep state [is] part of government or people outside of government that are literally controlling the direction of the country no matter who's actually in charge, and probably engaging in murder and other corrupt practices," [former National Security Council official Loren DeJonge] Schulman said. The deep state is a phrase often heard in countries where there is a history of military coups. Pakistan is Exhibit A: The deep state is often invoked in serious discussions about the role of the Pakistani military and its intelligence service. Wide swaths of the population see the unseen hand of the security services behind major political events and all kinds of everyday happenings, such as random traffic stops. The views are not without basis. "The deep state concept emerges in places where the army and the security apparatus creates boundaries within which the civilian political people are allowed to operate," said Peter Feaver, a specialist in civil-military issues. "If they transgress those boundaries, then the deep state interferes to reorder things, often using military force. There are milder forms of it in healthier democracies," Mr. Feaver said.