I think Donald Trump has gotten China's attention to a degree that his predecessors have not that this is a very serious matter for the United States.

The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century.

There will be boots on the ground if there's to be any hope of success in the strategy.

I have always voted for who I believed was the best person.

Soviet foreign ministers would come in to see the president all the time, routinely. Jimmy Carter stopped that after the invasion of Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan resumed it in 1984, I think. And so the fact of a meeting like that I think is not that big a deal.

I fired a lot of senior people myself and I think the key, when you feel compelled to remove a senior official, is essentially to have all your ducks in a row at the beginning. Have everybody understand what the rationale was.

If there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience.