Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus: they agree on little and understand each other less and less.

When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways.

I left Russia in 1993 optimistic that democracy had taken hold despite the obstacles.

Based on all criteria - military power, economic influence, cultural dominance - America remains number one, even though other, new players are increasingly challenging it in that role.

The thing that I would say is that U.S. power is not eternal. I am not saying that it won't come to an end. Because it will.

International order is not an evolution; it is an imposition. It is the domination of one vision over others- in this case, the domination of liberal free market principles of economics, democratic principles of politics, and a peaceful international system over other visions that other nations and peoples may have. It will last only as long as those who favor it retain the capacity to defend it.

If a caterpillar doesn't know its future has wings, it hardly experiences itself as land-bound.