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.

The terrorism from 9/11 has metastasized. It's metastasized in Iraq and Syria, in Nigeria, in Somalia, in Yemen and in other places in North Africa. We need a very comprehensive strategy to deal with that threat.

You don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on.

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.

We are a nation at war. This is also a time for hard choices. It's about ensuring that we are able to prevail in the conflicts in which we are now engaged. But it's also about being able to be strong and disciplined in applying our nation's limited resources to defending America.

I don't usually comment on columnists' ideas of what I'm thinking. That's a dangerous game to get into.

I think a quality that a national security adviser must have is the ability to set up procedures.