One of the big changes in the Congress since I first came to Washington is that all of these folks go home every weekend. They used to play golf together; their families got to know each other, go to dinner at each other's homes at weekends - and these would be people who were political adversaries.

I've been very sensitive for a long time to the repeated pattern, during economic hard times or after a war, of the United States' essentially unilaterally disarming.

Congress is best viewed from a distance—the farther the better—because up close, it is truly ugly. I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.

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.

I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position. And it didn't have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong.

I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet - and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful.

What I know concerns me. What I don't know concerns me even more. What people aren't telling me worries me the most.