We live in a world of absolute immediacy. It is an interconnected, combustible world, where technology and many other actions have given nonstate actors a reach, into countries and societies, for both good and evil, that we have never seen before. So it isn't a matter of just state versus state challenges or conflict. The bigger problem is nonstate actors.

I am fully supportive of 'open service' and committed to LGBT military families.

Iraq was a war of choice, like Vietnam.

I have never believed you go to war in Iraq, you go to war in Afghanistan, and believe that you can deal with those battlefields, those countries, in microcosms, or narrow channels.

If America is to succeed in responding to these 21st Century challenges, our political system cannot continue to bog down in the mire of partisan gamesmanship.

Closing Guantanamo Bay is not a military solution. The closing of that prison, which I support, I supported it when I was in the Senate, requires more than just a military dimension.

No one individual vote, no one individual quote or no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs, or my record.