David Ignatius Quotes
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This experience of getting so lost in my writing that I lose track of time, or of anything outside the imagined world, is a release for me.
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Empty political space will be filled by extremists unless the United States and its allies build strong local forces that can suppress terrorist groups and warlords both. When the U.S. creates such local forces, it must be persistent. If it withdraws from these efforts, as America did in Iraq in 2011, it invites mayhem.
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We have a complicated intelligence relationship with France. We have a complicated intelligence relationship with other - with other allies.
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A disaffected America can be drawn into a civilized - but disruptive - dialogue about political change and reformation.
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The world has changed, the CIA is having to change, and again, the challenge for someone like me as a spy novelist is to write realistically about where they're actually going.
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My guess is that before Obama departs, he will adopt some of the more aggressive military options he has been resisting, such as 'safe zones' inside Syria and more aggressive deployment of U.S. special forces.
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2011 is one of those years that historians are likely to look back on as a 'hinge.' And the truth, at once frightening and exhilarating, is that we don't know yet which way the door will swing.
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Moscow and Washington have evolved a delicate process for 'de-confliction' in the tight Syrian airspace, where accidents or miscommunication could be disastrous.
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Sometimes James Bond movies drive me crazy. They're fun to watch, but they don't have anything to do at all with what intelligence officers really do.
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What frustrates U.S. officials is that China sometimes seems more comfortable accommodating a strong United States, as it did in past decades, than partnering with an America that's less dominant.
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In a chaotic world, U.S. diplomats will probably have even less contact with the people they need to reach.
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Foreign policy is about the execution of ideas as much as their formulation.
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The revival of the U.S. financial system after the crash of 2008 is arguably the Obama administration's biggest domestic policy success.
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Thanksgiving is America's favorite holiday because it's a time when we put aside our cares, much as the struggling Pilgrims did nearly four centuries ago, and eat a gut-busting meal without worrying about the 'out years.'
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Machiavelli did believe that it was better to appear to be good than to be good. If you're good, you're just too vulnerable, but if you appear to be good, you get all the benefits plus you can be sneaky and, when necessary, stab someone in the back.
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Russia isn't likely to have any more military success in Syria and Iraq than has the United States.
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The American experiment has always depended on a measure of tolerance and good sense.
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Prominent scientists have become increasingly convinced that the connection between carbon emissions and rising temperatures is real, but skeptics have whole truckloads of studies to demonstrate the opposite.
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Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Centcom, is probably the most decorated officer of his generation.
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The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi has become a political football in the presidential campaign, with all the grandstanding and misinformation that entails.
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During an economic crisis, what matters is that the government keeps its foot on the accelerator.
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The best restraint is old-fashioned market discipline, in which financial traders know that they, personally, will lose a ton of money if they take risky bets that don't pan out.
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It's a genuine dilemma for governments, deciding how much information to share in this threat-filled era.
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World War II provides a string of celebrated cases of deception and manipulation.