What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify.

Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.

Nothing is more urgent than a serious, dare I say compassionate, debate as to where we are going at home and abroad. Technicians cannot master revolutions; every great achievement was an idea before it became a reality. Cathedrals cannot be built by those who are paralyzed by doubt or consumed by cynicism. If a society loses the capacity for great conception, it can be administered but not governed.

While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

The attitude of the West and of Russia towards a crisis like Ukraine is diametrically different. The West is trying to establish the legality of any established border. For Russia, Ukraine is part of the Russian patrimony. A Russian state was created around Kiev about 1,200 years ago. Ukraine itself has been part of Russia for 500 years, and I would say most Russians consider it part of Russian patrimony. The ideal solution would be to have a Ukraine like Finland or Austria that can be a bridge between these two rather than an outpost.

I grew up as a discriminated minority in a dictatorship, so obviously the issue of human rights is a matter of concern for me.