I believe the liberal international order is under assault from Russia, and from other authoritarian regimes, and it is being questioned from within the West by nationalists, by nativists, and by people who doubt our - doubt the values of the West. We've gone through periods like this before; in the '70s, after Vietnam and Watergate, and certainly in the '30s, when people thought liberal democracy was dead, and the future belonged either to the fascists or the communists.

Nationalism is like cheap alcohol. First it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, then it kills you.

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.

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.

[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.

Think of Europe in the 20th century. Two World Wars generated by nationalism. France, Germany, Britain fighting with each other.

No great power is ever satisfied with its sphere of influence. They never are.