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.

ISIS is the near-term threat, and that the longer - or the mid-term challenge is managing the rise of China. There's some evidence that that's the thinking of the [Donald Trump] administration. That's a perfectly reasonable approach. Well, if that's the case, then you surely want to have a united West to deal with both, and you want to have Russia alongside, but maybe not this Russia while it's busy trying to undermine your chief asset, which is a united West.

The sense the great democracies of the world - Europe, the United States, Japan, others - are going to set the agenda for the world. [Russians] want to bring that down.

We did really well for a generation after 1989 and the fall of communism. Our liberal values expanded in the world, our prosperity expanded.

Diminish us across the board. They [Russians] do not wish us well.

I am not one of these people that believes that Russia is doomed, or somehow, you know, inevitably disposed to act according to its worst traditions. But all the more reason, therefore, to resist their aggression and take it seriously.

The Russians are using the tools at their disposal to weaken Western solidarity, to create doubt, to support nationalist parties, just as the old Soviets supported leftist parties. We need a united Western response to this multi-pronged threat.