Firing off 1,000 or 500 or 2,000 nuclear warheads on a few minutes' consideration has always struck me as an absurd way to go to war.

I will make a general statement that we have not had anything like the policy of holding people in high office responsible for their acts that I think we should.

Acts of terror have never brought down liberal democracies. Acts of parliament have closed a few.

To say that you now trust the Russian military command and control system because some Russian general told you from the bottom of his heart that's the case, strikes me as most unrealistic.

As many critics have pointed, out, terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic. Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today's war on terrorism merely makes the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world.

The presidents I served under don't have anything to do with my politics.

Military officers from different countries, when they meet each other, tend to sort of fall in love, become mutual admiration societies, at the expense of realities.