Fears don't exist in isolation. They tend to rise and fall depending on what people think they can do about them.

Fears don't exist in isolation. They tend to rise and fall depending on what people think they can do about them.

Foreign policy is a little bit like a guy who goes to Las Vegas. If you win too much, then you eventually bet the mortgage. You start to think you are infallible.

Our sense of optimism, our can-do spirit, that's a source of great strength in America. But when there are no limits at all and we've gone through whole periods where we think everything has gone right, that's when disaster tends to strike.

There's nothing wrong with being proud of America, believing that America can do great things. America can do great things, it has done great things. I think we have to have the self-awareness to recognize that the world is a very, very big place, that we could be a force for good things in the world, but we have to have the humility to recognize that sometimes even when we think we're acting from the best of motives our own idealism can be infected by self-interest. Other people in other countries can see it sometimes better than we can.

When you talk about the security and safety of average Americans it doesn't do average Americans a lot of good to expand America's military footprint if the daily lives of average Americans are being undermined by the fact that we're no longer able to compete in a global economy. I think that's the kind of human security we have to pay more attention to.

I think the tragedy of Barack Obama's presidency is that although a lot of people around the world really admire Barack Obama a lot, they don't admire the American political and economic model as much as they used to.