Well, I've ruffled a few feathers at all the institutions I've led. But I think that's part of leadership.

In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.

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

I'm a big advocate of drones.

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.

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

Congress is best viewed from a distance - the farther the better - because up close, it is truly ugly.