Everybody who has dealt with China over an extended period of time has come to more or less the same conclusions. There are nuances of differences, but not fundamental differences. I think that President Bush was heading in this direction, and I have no doubt that he will again wind up in this position. But right now he has to be preoccupied with the atrocity committed in New York and Washington.

Taiwan will probably not declare independence. The question isn't independence. The issue is whether Taiwan will declare itself as a sovereign separate state. That will start a huge crisis if that happens.

Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

To have striven so hard, to have molded a public personality out of so amorphous an identity, to have sustained that superhuman effort only to end with every weakness disclosed and every error compounding the downfall--that was a fate of biblical proportions. Evidently the Deity would not tolerate the presumption that all can be manipulated; an object lesson of the limits of human presumption was necessary.

From a geo-strategic point of view, I consider Iran a bigger problem than the Islamic State. ISIS is a group of adventurers with a very aggressive ideology. But they have to conquer more and more territory before they can became a geo-strategic, permanent reality. I think a conflict with ISIS - important as it is - is more manageable than a confrontation with Iran.

Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries