Jake Sullivan
The Strategist
The long view, patient, analytical, playing several moves ahead.
Jake Sullivan reads as The Strategist because his career has been an exercise in converting geopolitical complexity into actionable doctrine. As National Security Adviser he authored the administration's foreign policy architecture, framing great-power competition with China and coordinating the Western response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. His signature is rigorous analytical preparation married to deliberate decision-making at the highest stakes, a leader who wins by out-thinking the problem before anyone else has finished defining it.
“I take very seriously my responsibility to run a process that is open, humane, fair, transparent, and above board, so that his perspective, the Secretary of Defense's perspective, the Attorney General's perspective are all teed up to the president.”
“The biggest piece of advice I give young people is to reject certitude. No matter how good your argument is, it almost certainly has weaknesses or blind spots, and you should acknowledge those.”
“I would like to leave our alliances with like-minded democracies at a high water mark in Europe, Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, because those are the force multipliers for everything we do.”
The David Rubenstein Show: “Jake Sullivan”
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