Putin needs to understand and feel in his gut that if the Chechens get a nuclear bomb, they're going to Moscow first, they're not coming to New York.

And I hope that we can learn the lessons of the past in looking at the current challenge that China poses to a ruling America.

I think we should be organized in something called an Alliance Against Nuclear Terrorism. In the same way that NATO was the great alliance of the Cold War and served a great purpose then, we need now, in the war on terrorism, a new alliance, the mission of which would be to minimize the risk of nuclear terrorist attacks, and the members would agree to sign on to the gold standard.

There are two great tragedies in life: one is to fail to achieve one's grandest ambitions, and the other one is to succeed.

The best simpleminded test of expertise in a particular area is an ability to win money in a series of bets on future occurrences in that area.

The absence of a focal enemy, which is what the Cold War had provided; the complexity of the developments that are occurring that mean that the world is just extremely complicated - lots of different and competing stories and strands; the continuing reality of megaterrorism; and the dysfunctionality of our politics that has neglected the foundations of the U.S. role in the world; have altogether left us somewhat confused.

When we succeeded in winning the Cold War, escaping a nuclear Armageddon that could have killed us all, the U.S. inevitably had a serious problem about an encore: what now for our place in the world?