Secret services ascend when a state becomes a world power, not under survival threat

Evidence

There is no reason to doubt Mr. Allan W. Dulles’ statement that Intelligence in this country has enjoyed since 1947 “a more influential position in our government than Intelligence enjoys in any other government of the world,” nor is there any reason to believe that this influence has decreased since he made this statement in 1958. The deadly danger of “invisible government” to the institutions of the “visible government” has often been pointed out; what is perhaps less well known is the intimate traditional connection between imperialist politics and rule by “invisible government” and secret agents. It is an error to believe that the creation of a net of secret services in this country after World War II was the answer to a direct threat to its national survival by the espionage network of Soviet Russia; the war had propelled the United States to the position of the greatest world power and it was this world power, rather than national existence, that was challenged by the revolutionary power of Moscow-directed communism. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 30

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the imperialist/secret-police theme threaded through later readings on state bureaucratic rationality enabling exclusion.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing the historical claim that US secret-service strength tracks world-power status rather than Soviet espionage threat.