It's important to Russia to be able to attract capital and to attract technology to develop their oil fields, their oil and gas fields, many of which suffer from lack of access to the very best technologies. And it's also important, and this has been the US government's view to have diversification of supply, diversification of supply roots and, of course, diversification in terms of alternative energy.

I may not agree with everything, but our President, just like President [George W.] Bush did, is trying to do his best under difficult circumstances.

We can't live true to our set of values unless American educational system is strong. I really believe that if we don't get that right we will not compete because we won't believe that our people can compete, and we'll turn inward. We won't lead. That will be bad for the world.

Everybody in the world is capable of democratic development. Some people in the world are unlucky enough to get stuck with really bad political leadership and with really bad political institutions.

When you have big historic changes, there are going to be ups and downs... There are going to be peaks and valleys. Some things are going to go right. Some things are going to go wrong. But as long as the strategic direction is going in the right way, that's really what you have to judge.

NATO is built on security, but it's also built on values.

There's no greater challenge and there is no greater honor than to be in public service.