Nothing can be taken for granted and this great achievement is now under assault by Russia. But what we did in my time is no less honorable. It is for the present generation to defend.

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.

Our mistakes, blunders, flaws, and shortcomings notwithstanding, the world America made after 1945 and 1989 has enjoyed the longest period of general peace in the west since Roman times, and decades of prosperity.

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.

If we blunt Russian efforts now to be aggressive, we may be pleasantly surprised by the policy options that become available to us, in terms of working with a better Russia.

Partisanship is not part of my professional makeup.

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.