Chatter: Phantom Orbit with Journalist David Ignatius
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2024
⏱️ 63 minutes
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Summary
David Ignatius has worked at the Washington Post for more than 35 years in various roles and won many awards. He has written a column on foreign affairs for 25 years and reported some of the most significant national security stories over the last couple of decades. And he has done it while pumping out best-selling spy thrillers.
Lawfare Research fellow Matt Gluck spoke with Ignatius about his newest spy thriller, Phantom Orbit, which is a story of intelligence and the advance of space technology in the age of intensified geopolitical competition between the U.S., China, and Russia. They spoke about Ignatius’s character development in the book, what the book reveals about the new strategic space race, gender in the Central Intelligence Agency, and scientific discovery, among other things.
For more about David:
- His book “Phantom Orbit”
- David’s Twitter Page
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the Lawfair Podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of Lawfair at Patreon.com slash Lawfair. That's Patreon.com |
| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | This is Chatter, I'm Matt Gluck. This week journalist and novelist David Ignatius on phantom orbit. |
| 0:40.0 | I think the honest truth Matt is that the reason the U.S. Space Force was |
| 0:49.3 | created was because the Air Force dropped the ball. It just didn't take space serious enough. |
| 0:55.0 | What gives the United States special opportunities and also difficulties is that what's most dynamic in our space array is actually in a private sector. |
| 1:10.0 | The first Gulf War taught everybody about the importance of precision weapons and everybody |
| 1:17.1 | follow. |
| 1:18.1 | This is a drone war. |
| 1:19.6 | Don't think that drones won't operate in every battle space on the planet in the future because of what people |
| 1:25.4 | are watching in Ukraine. |
| 1:27.0 | David Ignatius, welcome to Chatter. |
| 1:34.8 | Congratulations on your excellent and engrossing book. |
| 1:38.8 | To get us started, could you describe how you settled into a career that as you write in the acknowledgments of Phantom |
| 1:47.8 | Orbit has allowed you to pursue the twin paths of fiction in fact? |
| 1:53.4 | So settle in is, doesn't feel like quite the right word. |
| 1:58.3 | I published my first novel in 1987. |
| 2:01.8 | At that point had been a journalist for the Wall Street Journal for about 10 years. |
| 2:07.0 | I'd covered the Middle East for the Wall Street Journal and in the course of that I'd come across a story that appeared on the front page of the journal about how the CIA had recruited |
| 2:17.5 | Arafat's, yes or Arafat then leader the PLO leading terrorist group at the time, had recruited his chief of intelligence as an American |
... |
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