In the 1930s, Adolf Hitler believed that his great-power rivals would be easy to exploit and isolate because each had little interest in fighting Germany and instead was determined to get someone else to assume the burden. He guessed right.

I believe that the existing power structures in Europe and Northeast Asia are not sustainable through 2020.

The liberal tradition has its roots in the Enlightenment, that period in the eighteenth-century Europe when intellectuals and political leaders had a powerful sense that reason could be employed to make the world a better place.

The most dangerous states in the international system are continental powers with large armies.

Bandwagoning is a strategy for the weak.

Great powers must be forever vigilant and never subordinate survival to any other goal, including prosperity.

In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi.