The developed world should neither shelter nor militarily destabilize authoritarian regimes unless those regimes represent an imminent threat to the national security of other states. Developed states should instead work to create the conditions most favorable for a closed regime's safe passage through the least stable segment of the J curve however and whenever the slide toward instability comes. And developed states should minimize the risk these states pose the rest of the world as their transition toward modernity begins.

NASA is increasingly not the future of space exploration. I love the fact that we have private sector folks devoting a lot of money to stimulate innovation in space technology.

I think political science is bad at prediction. We don't gaze into a crystal ball. I do not believe that we predict things.

In China, the state controls the corporations, whereas in the United States, the corporations control the state.

We live in a fantastically wealthy country. We don't have to worry about food. We don't have to worry about clothing. We don't have to worry about our safety. It's very easy for me to be an environmentalist. It's very easy for me to care about making sure that we protect the forests and the whales, and all that stuff.

An emerging market is a country where politics matters at least as much as economics to the market.

State capitalism is about more than emergency government spending, implementation of more intelligent regulation, or a stronger social safety net. It's about state dominance of economic activity for political gain.