Award-Winning Foreign Affairs Columnist and Bestselling Author
David Ignatius: Biography at a Glance
- One of America’s most respected voices on global affairs, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius has spent more than four decades reporting from the world’s political and intelligence front lines, covering the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, and the inner workings of the CIA.
- A bridge between Washington and the world, Ignatius brings a journalist’s integrity and novelist’s insight to the great geopolitical questions of our time, offering audiences clarity on the forces reshaping security, democracy, and diplomacy.
- An award-winning columnist and bestselling author, Ignatius’s reporting has earned the Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary, the Overseas Press Club Award, and a George Polk Award for his coverage of the murder of colleague Jamal Khashoggi and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
- His spy novels, including Body of Lies, The Quantum Spy, and Phantom Orbit, are praised by intelligence insiders and have even been used by the CIA to help train recruits, a testament to his unmatched understanding of the intelligence world.
- A trusted voice across media, Ignatius offers rare insight into the moral and strategic dilemmas facing America and its allies in an era of digital warfare, political polarization, and rapid technological change.
Biography
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is one of America’s preeminent foreign affairs writers. He has covered politics, economics, the Middle East, and the secret world of intelligence and the CIA for nearly four decades. Highly sought after for his unparalleled insight on foreign affairs, he is an NBC analyst and regular guest on Morning Joe. Ignatius is also the bestselling author of spy thrillers that blur the lines between fact and fiction, including Body of Lies, The Quantum Spy, and his newest book, Phantom Orbit. It has been said that “few people understand espionage culture as well as Ignatius.” The New York Times described him as one of “the wise men of Washington.”
Drawing from more than 40 years of on-the-ground reporting, Ignatius brings to the stage his insights and expertise on the threats to national security, cyberwar, artificial intelligence, and the spread of information. With his ability to explain and edify the most complex issues, Ignatius addresses the forces at play in an increasingly disrupted world and analyzes the implications of growing uncertainty and risk.
For more than 15 years, Ignatius has published his twice-weekly column for the Washington Post. Appearing in scores of newspapers around the world, his column has won the Overseas Press Club Award, the Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center for Journalists. In 2019, Ignatius won a special George Polk award for his coverage, nine articles in all, of the killing of Post columnist and his colleague Jamal Khashoggi. He was a member of a Post team that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for that coverage.
Turning his experiences with the CIA into numerous spy novels, Ignatius has been praised for his “unparalleled understanding of the intelligence world.” According to former CIA Director Leon Panetta, “David Ignatius may call it a novel, but for those of us who know the work of the intelligence community, this book is nothing less than a real-life insight into the ongoing battle for dominance in the digital world." Agents of Innocence, his first novel, is a classic of espionage fiction, drawing on his experiences covering the CIA’s early-80s campaigns in the Middle East. The CIA recommends the book to young recruits and wrote on its website, “Though a novel, senior officers say this book is not fiction.” His other bestsellers include The Director and Body of Lies, which director Ridley Scott adapted into a feature film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.
During the summer of 2023, he released a 4-part serialized novella titled "The Tao of Deception" in the Washington Post's Opinion Section. "The Tao of Deception" is another spy thriller that very closely mirrors reality, telling a story of the CIA's loss of Chinese intelligence assets over a decade ago. "While this isn’t a piece of journalism or a historical account, it will paint the battle between the CIA and the Chinese Ministry of State Security in true colors,” said Ignatius.
A graduate of Harvard and Cambridge, Ignatius was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and the executive editor of the International Herald Tribune. He has published articles in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. His first opera libretto, The New Prince, was an adaptation of Machiavelli’s The Prince and premiered at the Dutch National Opera in 2017.
Topics
What Are the Stress Points in a Disrupted World?
We are at a global inflection point as a new economic and political order has disrupted the world and the risks for the United States and its allies are increasing. As the U.S. wanes from an era of unparalleled economic growth, it is entering another structure whose rules and rewards aren’t yet clear. And in an economy where confidence leads to investment and political instability undermines confidence, there is a likelihood that burgeoning political instability across the world will slow down investment and economic growth. The next five years will see rising tensions within and between countries. In this speech, David Ignatius draws from over 40 years of on-the-ground reporting on foreign affairs, Capitol Hill, global politics, and economics to address the forces at play in a disrupted world and analyze the implications of growing uncertainty and risk.
Cybergeddon: Fact, Fiction, and the Future of Warfare
As a new age of warfare dawns, with artificial intelligence and other forms of high-tech conflict as the primary mode of combat, it’s easy to miss this inflection point: Foreign adversaries have repeatedly conspired to undermine the American political system and the U.S. responded, after several false starts, with an overt effort against a covert enemy. As the Pentagon continues to play catch-up in a rapidly evolving battlefield, it must also learn how to work with Silicon Valley and the global tech giants who pay fealty to no single state. According to David Ignatius, Washington Post foreign affairs columnist and author of spy novels, including The Quantum Spy about the arms race of supercomputers, now that the battle has been joined, the world we live in will be a contested information space with no clear enemy, target, or goal. Drawing from his coverage of the global charge toward technological dominance, Ignatius presents a sophisticated game of cat-and-mouse where the winners own the future of warfare and security and the losers forfeit everything, including their privacy and economic stability. With his wide-ranging knowledge of the CIA, national security, and policy, Ignatius delivers an in-depth account of what’s at stake and poses possible outcomes and solutions. He dispels common myths about the future of cyber and highlights the legitimate dangers, the future of 5G, and the hyper-fast quantum computer, which he says is the digital equivalent of a nuclear bomb. As Ignatius wrote in The Quantum Spy, “In a world where everything is written in zeroes and ones, nothing can be trusted.”
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FAQs
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David Ignatius booking information and availability
Check David Ignatius's speaking availability through CAA Speakers at speakers@caa.com. Book 3-6 months in advance for best date selection during peak seasons (September-November, March-May).
Availability factors:- Event date and location
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CAA Speakers responds to David Ignatius booking inquiries within 24 hours during business days. Complex requests or international events may take up to 48 hours for detailed proposals.
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How far in advance should I book David Ignatius?
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