I've read a lot of war writing, even World War I writing, the British war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves's memoir 'Goodbye to All That,' and a civilian memoir, 'Testament of Youth,' by Vera Brittain.

I have my sympathies and also my critical views, and they aren't much of a secret, but my first job is to see and hear and think about what I've seen and heard.

Everyone finds justification for his or her views in logic and analysis, but a personal philosophy often emerges from some archaic part of the mind, an early idea of how the world should be.

Even while writing about foreign places, I have been in a way writing about America, because that's the subject that interests me the most. I'm attached to it, critical, but it's definitely my country, and maybe even more so when I'm overseas.

Leadership consists of picking good men and helping them do their best.

I really do believe in succession building and giving people experience for future leadership.

With the election of Trump, America's soft power has taken a big hit. The United States has moved from a position of leadership in the creation of a rules-based international system to a position of leadership in its destruction and the creation of a regime of global protectionism. The damage will be long-lasting.

In the South, there was absence of any leadership corresponding in breadth and courage to that of Abraham Lincoln.