America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long.

I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written.

I think, on the foreign policy side, that there is a need for disruption. We've had three administrations follow a pretty consistent policy toward North Korea, and it really hasn't gotten us anywhere.

I think that Vladimir Putin has decided, in a very strategic way, to turn the tables and do everything in his power to, as we've described Russian elections as illegitimate, to try and communicate to the rest of the world that Western elections are illegitimate. And it's not just us, we know that now. It's Germany, it's France, it's a number of other countries.

I'm a big advocate of drones.

One of the toughest battles in intelligence is combating conventional wisdom.

My last visit to China as secretary, January of 2011, I told President Hu Jintao, just like this, "President of the United States wanted me to tell you that we now consider North Korea a direct threat to the United States." And it had no effect whatsoever.