The United States is prepared really to be engaged in the quest to get people in the world the dignities that they seek today, the social justice that they feel they're deprived of, and the common solution to global problems.

Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.

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.

The kind of problem that America faces in Iraq is a little bit the kind of problem that Israel faced in dealing with Hezbollah. If the conflict, the theater of conflict enlarges, it's going to become more and more absorbing and more and more costly.

Hard power makes sense under some circumstances. But there's not a universal solution to global problems. A major country like the United States has to have a broadly-conceived program for effective international action, influence and cooperation with others.

Without Ukraine, Russia's imperial aspirations are essentially nostalgia, but it's not a real policy.

In early times, it was easier to control a million people than to kill a million. Today, it is infinitely easier to to kill a million people than to control a million.