Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

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 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 read in the press, and therefore it must be true, that no secretary of defense had ever been quoted as arguing for a bigger budget for State.

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

I don't think any president that I worked with has ever said 'pretty please.

Well, what I've said is that the war in Iraq will always be clouded by how it began, which was a wrong premise, that there were in fact no weapons of nuclear - weapons of mass destruction.