Jack Devine
The Strategist
The long view, patient, analytical, playing several moves ahead.
Jack Devine is The Strategist in the fullest sense, a leader whose 32 years at the CIA, culminating as Acting Director of Operations, were defined by reading terrain before committing force. His preference for covert action over ground armies reflects deliberate course-plotting, and his warning that tactical thinking crowds out strategic vision inside intelligence institutions carries the precision of someone who steered long-range operations, identified systemic drift, and worked backward to the intervention.
“I wrote an op ed piece in July — the CIA solution — which is, let's not put an army on the ground. We're not going to win with the army on the ground. We should be working covertly.”
“The Russians are deep into our cyber world, the new world of combat, and they're very effective. They've been penetrating us for longer than the Chinese. We need to respond to that.”
“Most of the intelligence role, most of the world is around tactical thinking — what are we doing today? It's very hard to build in the strategic things.”
Masters in Business: “Jack Devine on the Afghan War’s Financial Disaster (Podcast)”
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