America has made it very clear in several administrations that if there is an attack by China on Taiwan, the United States is very likely to resist.

I wouldn't say it's a split. It's a difference of emphasis. It does exist between, I would say, the State Department and the Defense Department.

We are not just any nation.

Left to its own devices, the State Department machinery tends toward inertia rather than creativity; it is always on the verge of turning itself into an enormous cable machine.

Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.

Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren’t realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.

The statesman's duty is to bridge the gap between his nation's experience and his vision.