I think it is important to ask ourselves as citizens, not as Democrats attacking the administration, but as citizens, whether a world power can really provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety?

I think it is important to ask ourselves as citizens, not as Democrats attacking the administration, but as citizens, whether a world power can really provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety?

Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you're killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you will not intimidate them. You'll simply outrage them and make them into permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing.

I think the United States is currently a kind of wonder - wonderland with the president Trump speaking on subjects of his choice, some of which are entertaining, but none of which are very strategically substantive.

American power worldwide is at its historic zenith.

The fact is that one significant way the Iranians have a posture different from the North Koreans, the North Koreans basically are saying we have a nuclear program. We are seeking weapons. We have produced weapons. We're proud of the fact that we have weapons.

However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.