I am not a neoconservative. I am pro-American.

I don't much believe in bumper sticker characterizations of foreign policy.

I think the regime in North Korea is more fragile than people think. The country's economic system remains desperate, and one thing that could happen for example would be under a new government in South Korea, to get the South Korean government to live up to its own constitution, which says any Korean who makes it to South Korea, is a Korean citizen. A citizen of the Republic of Korea. And you could imagine the impact that would have inside North Korea if people thought, "If I could get out and make it to South Korea, I could have a different life."

Maybe it's my libertarian philosophy: but being in government is hard.

I am not a professional politician.

The culture of the State Department is very negative towards a conservative foreign policy. And the model that we all have, of civil servants as neutral careerists who carry out the policy of the elected president, doesn't work nearly the way it should in the State Department. So that there are many people who want to be good civil servants, who want to try and carry out these policies, but are afraid to do so. And I'm not even counting the very small number of conservatives in the State Department who are genuinely at risk.

THe Chinese like the satellite state [North Korea] between China and our forces, they fear that in a reunified Korea, American troops would be at the Yalu River and they've seen that movie before. They didn't like it the first time they saw it and they don't like it any better today. So they are quite happy with the divided Korean peninsula and that's a fundamental difference between the way they see things and the way we see things.