War & Peace Quote by Richard Armitage

Armitage’s language is the post-9/11 national security state learning to sell itself in real time: a “multifaceted fight” that just happens to require every instrument of government, everywhere, all at once. The phrasing does more than describe complexity; it authorizes sprawl. By calling counterterrorism a “war,” he reaches for the moral clarity and urgency Americans associate with wartime footing. By immediately expanding the battlefield into “diplomacy, finance, intelligence, law enforcement,” he quietly dissolves the usual boundaries between foreign and domestic, soldier and banker, courtroom and kill zone.

The subtext is coalition management. Armitage, a seasoned operator in the Bush-era foreign policy apparatus, is speaking to allies, agencies, and skeptics who might resist a purely military approach. “Every tool in our toolkit” is a bureaucratic handshake: the Pentagon gets its missions, the Treasury gets its sanctions architecture, intelligence gets its authorities, law enforcement gets its expanded remit. The list is not incidental; it’s a map of power centers being aligned under a single narrative.

Most telling is the improvisational closer: “developing new tools as we go along.” That’s pragmatism on the surface, permission on the underside. In a crisis frame, experimentation sounds responsible; in governance terms, it can mean new surveillance powers, new financial controls, new legal theories, new covert capabilities - innovations built faster than oversight can keep up. The quote works because it pairs reassurance (we’re using everything we have) with open-ended escalation (and we’ll invent what we don’t), turning uncertainty into a mandate.