The political awakening that is happening worldwide is a major challenge for America, because it means that the world is much more restless. It's stirring. It has aspirations which are not easily satisfied. And if America is to lead, it has to relate itself somehow to these new, lively, intense political aspirations, which make our age so different from even the recent past.

Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.

Today we are in a situation in which the free movement of people can have enormous, monumental dimensions, and I don't think that any country in Western Europe or in America can any longer adopt the idea of totally free movement of people. I t would simply overwhelm their social facilities, their societies and create migratory dynamics on the scales of tens and tens of millions of people. That simply is not practical.

One has to define very clearly what one's objectives are, determine in advance how much one is prepared to pay to achieve that objective and then act accordingly.

American power worldwide is at its historic zenith.

The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border of Afghanistan, I wrote to President Jimmy Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.

The mistakes of the Iraq war are not only tactical and strategic, but historical. It is essentially a war of colonialism, attempted in the post-colonial age.