The threats that resurfaced in the past 10 years were not an aberration. Al Qaeda and terrorism or one such threat, but it was actually not the most serious threat that the United States faced. The president can and should speak of foreseeing an era ...
The worst president is closer by nature to the best then either is to anyone who has not gone through what it requires to become president.
If the cost of naming the enemy is diplomatically or politically unacceptable, then the war is not likely to go well.
Building a naval power takes generations, not so much to develop the necessary technology as to pass along the accumulated experience that creates good admirals.
Their job as leader was not to solve the problem – the president really has little control over the economy – but to convince the public not only that he has a plan but that he is altogether confident in the plan's success and that only a cynic o...
Presidents and other politicians manage the appearance of things, largely by manipulating the air and hope.
While you and I are allowed the luxury of our pain, president isn't. A president must take into account how his citizens feel and he must manage them and lead them, but he must not succumb to personal feelings. His job is to maintain a ruthless sense...
In the course of the century, so many individual decisions are made that no single one of them is ever critical. Each decision is lost in the torrent of judgments that make up a century.
Wars are times of intense technological transformation, because societies invest – sometimes with extensive borrowing – when and where matters of life and death are at stake.
The kind of president we need has little to do with ideology and more to do with a willingness to wield power to moral ends.
A century is about events. A decade is about people.
The reality is that the American people have no desire for an empire. This is not to say that they don't want the benefits, both economic and strategic. It simply means that they don't want to pay the price. Economically, Americans want the growth po...
Long-term solutions are more attractive and cause much less controversy than short-term solutions, which will affect people who are still alive and voting.
Recent presidents have gone off on ad hoc adventures. They have set unattainable goal because they have framed the issue incorrectly, as they believed their own rhetoric.
Success will require the studied lack of sophistication of a Ronald Reagan and the casual dishonesty of an FDR. The president must appear to be not very bright yet be able to lie convincingly.
Idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can only be corrected by a profound understanding power in its complete sense.
The great presidents never forget the principle of the republic and seek to preserve and enhance them – in the long run– without undermining the needs of the moment. Bad presidents simply do what is expedient, heedless of principles. But the wors...
