The NATO alliance is not just a transactional relationship, once again. That alliance serves our interests. That alliance has been critical to keeping security in Europe, so that we do not face another world war.

Presidents always - not always, but often have bad conversations with counterparts. They just don't go out and embarrass their counterpart by talking about it. They find other ways to work it out.

I'm concerned about Donald Trump's relationship with Russia that ignores Russia's aggressiveness in its near abroad. I'm concerned about the willingness to question alliances and the value of allies, or require them to pay more, or they don't get to play.

There are real issues that the president Donald Trump and particularly Steve Bannon, his political adviser, are pushing. It's a vision, a rather dark vision, of a 19th century world where great powers do transactional issues.

Optimism is in short supply in the Middle East, but what I do think is the administration needs to step up its act. We should use military strikes against ISIS when they threaten the Shia areas or Baghdad. We need to accelerate very rapidly, and we have ways to do it, aid to the Syrians, and we need to be more active, with results, not simply inputs. That is absolutely important right now, because people are questioning our will, not our capabilities.

NATO is in our national security interests. And, yes, we pay a lot for it, but, when we had Afghanistan, NATO troops were by our side from almost all of the NATO members. And they put their life and treasure on the line for us.

I know that presidents often have really bad phone conversations. What they usually don't do is go out and talk about it. That gets to my point about doing some damage on the periphery of our core policies.