I am not against working with Russia in areas of common interests at the same time. We're smart enough, or we should be smart enough to have a dual track policy. You know, walk and chew gum at the same time.

Diplomacy is not merely talking somebody into something; it's talking to somebody from a position of strength. You put your power on the table to open up the conversation; that's diplomacy.

In my view, [Vladimir] Putin despises the West in general and the United States in particular, both for who we are, our liberal values, and for what we`ve done, which is to take down the Soviet Empire.

The United States comes in 1945 and we basically blow the whistle.

Republicans - Reagan but also George W. Bush - believed in freedom, and they believed in America's role. To have the governing party speak in terms of a zero-sum world, or speak in terms of America's purpose as no more than grabbing the largest share possible in the short run, goes against our foreign policy tradition that goes back to 1900, really.

America is not an ethnostate. We are not rooted in blood and soil.

I think that Hillary Clinton has an appreciation that American power needs to be put in the service of American values, which is an American tradition and a pretty good one, and I think she was willing to do that.