China has a very different view of global governance and the future of the liberal order. And of course, we are attached to a liberal order because i… - R. Nicholas Burns

Any time you're talking about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and of the ability to manufacture them, and you add to that unstable or aggressive states, and North Korea and Iran meet both of those definitions, then you've got a terrible problem on your hands. And so I can't think of any two bigger problems right now that the world is facing than those two.

My entire life I knew that the United States was not perfect because of the Vietnam War and Watergate during my teenage years, and I knew that race in particular was a curse on our history. We had never gotten race right since the first slave ship arrived in Virginia in 1619. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others have said that this is our original sin, of America itself, of our Constitution, which did not give African Americans, as you well know, full citizenship rights; nothing even close to it. But I feel now that America cannot be successful in its foreign and defense policy if we don’t heal and repair America at home. I’ve never felt that more strongly than I do right now.

On 9/11, having friends and allies made all the difference in the world. As we look at the pandemic and a possible second wave, the global economic collapse, the challenge that China and other authoritarian countries are presenting to our democracies, do we really want to face all this alone? Having retreated, are we going to return to our senses and re-establish and strengthen these alliances? That is a rhetorical question, but it’s an important one for Americans.