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.

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.

That was pretty smooth, because you don`t want something to go wrong when you have a whole senior level of actings. That`s not a position you want to be in. It`s OK to replace your team, but usually you want them to be in place until the new people are confirmed.

America's security and prosperity didn't work unless other nations were also secure, and prosperous. There had to be something in it for them, so we weren't looking simply to grab territory, or widen our sphere of influence, or anything like that. We wanted to make the world a better place, and get very rich in the process.

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

John Kerry tried to work with the Russians on Syria, and the man was honorable, because he was trying to do the right thing, and frankly, playing a very weak hand, a hand that was weak not because of him, okay. He did the best he could, but I will say this to his enormous credit: he never offered a dirty deal. You can have Ukraine if you only help us out on Syria. Never - he never did that.

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