China likes the idea of sovereign rights when it comes to organizing their politics as they see fit, and their economics. But they may grudgingly come to understand certain things differently in the area of climate or disease. China is a country fairly integrated into the world. Yet China is uncomfortable with this idea because they worry it will constrain their freedom, politically and economically, to do what they believe they need to do to maintain political stability and cohesion.

Television was our chief tool in selling our policy.

I think it was going to be hard to work with Russians on Syria. There is some potential overlap between the U.S. and Russia in that the Russians don't want to see the Syria situation unravel to a point where they have to escalate their own involvement. But at the moment, I don't see the U.S. and Russia on the same page in Syria. Russia seems much more interested in consolidating government control over liberated areas. It seems to me that the U.S. and Russia are proving they can disagree for independent reasons in any number of theaters.

If there's any country that has the capacity not to control North Korea, but to influence North Korea, it's still China. The Chinese always say they have very little influence. They have more than they say they do. We should put pressure on them to do it and there's finally, we're seeing the first signs of a little bit of Chinese disaffection. At some point they're getting tired of the antics of this country. This is a dangerous ally for China to have. And the more Chinese can pressure them and put the economic screws on them, the better it will be for everybody.

States would be wise to weaken sovereignty in order to protect themselves.

If the president Donald Trump had connected the Jerusalem question to some other positions, linking it to Israeli and Palestinian behavior or putting the Jerusalem statement in a larger context of U.S. policy, it could have potentially advanced the peace process. But I don't see how singling it out might help.

The U.S. position on Jerusalem was not the reason why there hasn't been progress towards peace. The reason is that both the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership are divided. And there is an enormous gap between Israelis and Palestinians. To say that this decision is only recognizing reality, that Jerusalem is the actual capital of Israel - well, that's true. But it's a selective recognition of reality.