While analogies are useful, however, they can also be misleading. They smuggle in assumptions that can be wrong.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, were spectacular, riveting, grim, costly and searing. The shock that they caused reverberated throughout the world. What happened in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania ended the lives of thousands of people and changed the lives of many more. But they did not change the world.

Let me remind you all that the first task of American foreign policy is to reduce threats to the United States.

American influence in the world is certainly considerable, but the United States does not control, directly or indirectly, the politics and economics of other societies, as empires have always done, save for a few special cases that turn out to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

Great wars can only be fought by great powers.

People do not change when you tell them they should; they change when they tell themselves they must.

The world needs a strong America.