International institutions are composed of governments. Governments control their own military forces and police.

The performance of international institutions will be symptomatic of the domestic political priorities of influential member states. International institutions don't really have a life and a mind of their own.

The way governments treat their own citizens matters; it matters because it can have a direct impact on international peace and security - and on our respective national security interests.

Every decision to use military force is an excruciatingly difficult one.

Some anti-Americanism derives simply from our being a colossus that bestrides the earth. But much anti-Americanism derives from the role U.S. political, economic and military power has played in denying such freedoms to others.

Citizens victimized by genocide or abandoned by the international community do not make good neighbors, as their thirst for vengeance, their irredentism and their acceptance of violence as a means of generating change can turn them into future threats.