Assad's mother was a terror. He was terrified of her and she kept saying to him, you're not like your father. That's interesting, but it's useless information. It doesn't tell me anything about how the first and second armored brigades are going to operate.

So you go to Brookings, or you go to Heritage or others, they know their position on any subject before they research it. If you go to an investment bank, they know what parts of the world they are going to cover and what parts of the world they are not going to cover depending on client interest. We cover the world without being skewed by that. And that makes it more valuable.

Well what are our geopolitical objectives? First, that North America be peaceful, prosperous, dominated by the United States. Second, that no nation be able to approach the United States militarily ... Those are the goals. It's very simple. We achieve that by making certain that all conflict takes place in the Eastern Hemisphere so we don't have conflict here.

I think the personal and psychological aspects of war remain the same. War is about killing and dying. A man or woman stands at the post and there is a very real possibility of dying in the next five minutes. Whether he dies or not depends partly on him and partly on luck, and yet he must continue to function.

Politicians are enormously smart and rational. They don't have the same interests as businessmen ... But a man rises to the top of the United States. He's clawed his way out of 330 million people. OK. He didn't do that because he was dumb, or lucky, or something like that. He understands power. And he understands how to take it. And he understands how to keep it.

What is the great fear of the United States? That an Eastern power will build a navy to challenge us. How do you keep them from doing that? Keep them at each other's throats so they don't have any money to do this. This is why we fought the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War.

Assad's mother was a terror. He was terrified of her and she kept saying to him, you're not like your father. That's interesting, but it's useless information. It doesn't tell me anything about how the first and second armored brigades are going to operate.