Global stability - economic as well as political - is at risk.

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.

I think the sheer attrition of American global domination will create circumstances in which the Chinese will be tempted to reach out for more influence, including in regions in which we have special interests, such as the Middle East, from which they already obtain a great deal of their energy. And that region will be seeking some new superpower patron.

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.

The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role.

American power worldwide is at its historic zenith.

The United States wants to be part of the solution to its problems and not, in part, the maker of their problems.