Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented.

First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

When I served as US Ambassador to NATO in the 1970s, the center of gravity in Europe was France and Germany.

To gain support in U.S. Congress and from other nations requires clarity, an acceptable mission and an explicit outcome.