Power... Military success is not sufficient to win: economic development, institution-building and the rule of law, promoting internal reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and more of these, along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success.

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

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

No president is well-served by groupthink or by everybody singing from the same sheet of music they think he's on.

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.

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

Defense is not like other discretionary spending.