I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt.

The Taliban is resilient.

Rising sea levels, severe draughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Obama really does recognize the threats that are out there; I think he understands the world. He understands the role of America in that troubled world.

The reality is that the United States military alone cannot be all things to all nations. We will sharpen the application of our resources, better deploy our forces in the world and share our burdens more and more effectively with our partners. And frankly, all our allies need to do the same.

The most important thing we can do is prosecute the offenders, deal with those that have broken the law and committed this crime. And if we can do that then we can begin to deal with this issue and send a signal this is not a problem that we are going to ignore in the United States military.

The one thing that I remember from all of my intelligence briefings and my dealings with the Russians is that when you deal with the Russians, you have to deal with them from strength, not from weakness.