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.

I happen to think that as the Ukraine moves to the West, towards the E.U., eventually towards NATO, it will pave the way also for Russia moving towards the West. Because it will become a logical extension of the same process, and it will eliminate any imperial ambitions.

Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen.

Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.

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.

One thing we know: Things will become even more destabilized if we don't step up Sino-U.S. cooperation. If you want to envisage a worst-case scenario, it is that Putin reveals step by step the inner weaknesses of the West, particularly in Europe, and the Chinese see in that an opportunity for emulation in the Far East, and then step by step through a gradual process we will be witnessing the emergence of Sino-Russian partnership in favor of a drastic change in the global balance of power.

An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries.