The Civil War was fought, in a sense, over whether that sentence - all men are created equal - is to be taken literally. And the southerners in the 1850s argued that it was not.

America's grand strategy did not come from nowhere. It followed from our deeper conception of ourselves, and our American identity. Who are we, Americans? What is our nation? We are not an ethnostate with identity rooted in shared blood. The option of a white man's republic ended at Appomattox.

[Russians] want to bring us down to make them feel better about the failure of the Soviet Union. I don`t mean bring us down as in collapse, but bring us down a notch in a big way.

There is nothing wrong when the Trump administration says it wants to find areas of common ground to work with Russia - perfectly reasonable. The question is, are you willing to pay the Russians in advance for the privilege of working with them in areas that are supposed to be of common interest, and that - I don't see the American interest in doing so.

My 40 years in the foreign service and the careers of many of my friends became associated with the fall of the Soviet Empire and the putting in order of what came after - the building of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. It`s hard to recall today how improbable victory in the Cold War appeared.

Remember, the American grand strategy works when other countries feel secure. But it doesn't work if we acquiesce in the aggression of other countries.

We have a deep sense of American equality and opportunity, and that informs the way in which we brought our American power to the world, because we thought that other nations were entitled to that same opportunity in a rules-based system.