Quotes by Dennis C. Blair

About Dennis C. Blair:

Dennis Cutler Blair is the former United States Director of National Intelligence and is a retired United States Navy admiral who was the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific region. Blair was a career officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the White House during the presidencies of both President Jimmy Carter and President Ronald Reagan. Blair retired from the Navy in 2002 as an Admiral. In 2009, Blair was selected as President Barack Obama’s first Director of National Intelligence, but after a series of bureaucratic battles, he resigned on May 20, 2010.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The Industrial Revolution caused a centuries-long shift in power to the West; globalization is now shifting the balance again.

Dennis C. Blair

My experience is the White House is not a very good place to coordinate intelligence, much less to integrate it.

Dennis C. Blair

The leaders who we admire who have been able to bring great change in the past - Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela - they're all inspirational religious leaders and smart tacticians. It would be nice to find the Muslim Gandhi, wouldn't it?

Dennis C. Blair

I think you can go back in history and look at what the effect in Asia and the world was of a divided, fractured China from, you know, the opium wars through the Chinese civil war, and I don't think it was pretty for Asia or the world.

Dennis C. Blair

Nothing is more important to national security and the making and conduct of good policy than timely, accurate, and relevant intelligence. Nothing is more critical to accurate and relevant intelligence than independent analysis.

Dennis C. Blair

All officers of the Intelligence Community, and especially its most senior officer, must conduct themselves in a manner that earns and retains the public trust. The American people are uncomfortable with government activities that do not take place i...

Dennis C. Blair

Before 9/11 there were weak procedures, willingness, and mechanisms for communicating among agencies for foreign intelligence and the FBI with its focus on law enforcement. The domestic-vs.-foreign barrier has been solved by the reforms after 9/11 th...

Dennis C. Blair

High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country.

Dennis C. Blair

The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means.

Dennis C. Blair

The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.

Dennis C. Blair

You can't always get someone where you want to with just sticks. There have to be some carrots, there have to be some other shaping things.

Dennis C. Blair

I find when you talk with the Chinese on most subjects, they are very practical.

Dennis C. Blair

There's sort of a theory that's going around in the China-watching community about a perfect storm coming up with the 2008 Olympics, a U.S. election and a Taiwanese election, some sort of mutually reinforcing explosion and crisis.

Dennis C. Blair

As is often the case when things are complicated, extreme views have superficial appeal. On the one extreme, some see China as an inevitable enemy that must be contained; on the other hand, there are those who see China as a slowly developing democra...

Dennis C. Blair

I know it sounds Pollyannish and 'Kumbaya'-like, but I find that the more that you expose Americans to the diversity of what's going on in China and vice versa, the more people find that there is this broad middle path. And so I'm a strong advocate o...

Dennis C. Blair

The use of large-scale military force in volatile regions of underdeveloped countries is difficult to do right, has major unintended consequences and rarely turns out to be quick, effective, controlled and short lived.

Dennis C. Blair

Southeast Asia is an area in which there is a form of Islam which is both devout and progressive, and therefore to be supported. It's an area in which I see a congruence of American interests and local interests: to have tolerant societies and become...

Dennis C. Blair

I think American interests are served when there are sections of the world that have representative governments, politically open economic systems, and are willing to take a stand against some of the more extreme ideologies that there are around the ...

Dennis C. Blair

In addition to anti-American terrorists with global reach, our adversaries include organizations - some nation states, some private and some criminal - that proliferate weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.

Dennis C. Blair

There are many causes of violent deaths in America - murders and traffic accidents - that we do not approach with the same 'no price too steep, no task too difficult' approach that we take toward al Qaeda.

Dennis C. Blair

Author Bio

  • NameDennis C. Blair
  • DescriptionUnited States admiral
  • BornFebruary 4, 1947
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionOfficer
  • AwardsLegionnaire Of Legion Of Merit