ABC This Week interviews during 2015: on Foreign Policy

Ben Carson: Trust experts to decide rules of engagement for ISIS

CARSON: What I would really like to see is an administration that seriously sits down with our experts in that region and ask them what is needed in order to accomplish our goal of eliminating this group of terrorists?

Q: So you don't know whether you'd want those rules of engagement loosened?

CARSON: Those of us who are not experts in that area can sit around all day long talking about doing this or doing that. But why don't we listen to the people who actually are the experts in that area, find out what it is that they need?

Martin O`Malley: Need to move towards 'networked intelligence'

O`MALLEY: The terrorist attacks in Paris suggest that we do not have the networked intelligence that we need to defend ourselves. An immune system is strong not because it outnumbers the bad germs in this world but because it's better coordinated. That is not the old way of a CIA and siloed bureaucracies. It requires a new age of rapid communications and intelligence sharing with neighbors that, in the past, a lot of security agencies thought ran contrary to our national interests. When it comes, also, to fighting ISIL on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, we need to up the battle tempo and we also need new alliances with many other nations that are open-ended and ideally work through the U.N. Security Council. It also requires an open-endedness to allow the Russians to come in and help us provided we can get that a short-term political solution that directs their firepower.

Marco Rubio: Too risky to take in Syrian refugees

RUBIO: The problem is we can't background check them. You can't pick up the phone and call Syria. And that's one of the reasons why I said we won't be able to take more refugees. It's not that we don't want to. The bottom line is that this is not just a threat coming from abroad. What we need to open up to and realize is that we have a threat here at home, homegrown violent extremists, individuals who perhaps have not even traveled abroad, who have been radicalized online. This has become a multi-faceted threat. In the case of what's happening in Europe, this is a swarm of refugees. And as I've said repeatedly over the last few months, you can have 1,000 people come in and 999 of them are just poor people fleeing oppression and violence but one of them is an ISIS fighter.

Ben Carson: Continue to confront China in South China Sea

A: All of our friends in that region are, I think, are very relieved to see us doing that. Australia, also, is doing that. You know, we need to challenge these boundaries that are not legal.

Q: So is this enough, sending a guided missile destroyer in?

A: It's a good start; I hope we continue to do those kinds of exercises.

Ben Carson: Corner Putin by arming Ukraine & reducing oil dependence

Carly Fiorina: Special ops in Syria are too little too late

FIORINA: Well, I do. But I think it's a bit too little, too late. Look, all of us who know anything about it have known that you cannot have a successful bombing campaign unless you have special operations troops on the ground helping to direct that campaign. President Obama hasn't been willing to do that for political purposes. It's also true that he has no strategy in Syria. He has no strategy for ISIS. And it's also true that when the United States of America fails to act, as he has failed to act, are options are diminished.

Chris Christie: Push Russia out of Middle East; establish US dominance

CHRISTIE: Well, we don't need to be friends with Vladimir Putin and we don't need to be worried about whether he's in a quagmire. After 40 years, we allowed Russia back into the Middle East. And now who are they partnered with? Iran.

Q: So how do you push them out?

CHRISTIE: America's got to re-establish its presence in that area. We should be the ones leading the fight on ISIS. And by the way, we know Putin's not fighting ISIS. Putin's there to prop up Assad.

Q: Would you put in a no-fly zone?

CHRISTIE: Absolutely. And I'll tell you this, there's now 300,000 nearly dead in Syria because of Assad and now Putin is going in and teaming with the Iranians to prop up Assad.

Ben Carson: Take a stronger stance against Chinese cyber-attacks

CARSON: I'm saying anybody who attacks us in the cyberspace they need to understand that there will be consequences for that. You know, we can't just sit around and talk about it. That's going to be one of the real factors in the future. Not only that, but we have to harden our grid. We have to have several layers of alternate energy. We have to get back into space. In the future, he who controls space will control the Earth. You know, there are a lot of things that we have to do. We have to take a strong stance. Strength is really the defense against aggressiveness by others.

John Kasich: Refugee crisis is on Europe, but US also has responsibility

KASICH: Well, I think maybe this is an opportunity for the United States and the western world to work together to solve what is an unbelievable crisis. And I think we do have a responsibility in terms of taking some more folks in, making sure they assimilate, and at the same time helping people to actually be safe as they move. That's logistical support. But this is fundamentally an issue that Europe has to come to grips with. We can provide some humanitarian aid to them. But the bottom line is we should have been supporting the Syrian rebels years ago. I pitched Boehner and McCain on it, the administration ignored it. This thing could be over by now. But when the United States draws red lines and walks away without a solid policy, we see human tragedy unfolding right before our eyes.

Bernie Sanders: US should be more selective about using drone strikes

SANDERS: I think you can argue that there are times and places where drone attacks have been effective, and there are times and places where they have been absolutely counter-effective and have caused more problems when they have solved. When you kill innocent people, the end result is that people in the region become anti-American who otherwise would not have been. So, I think we have to use drones very, very selectively and effectively. That has not always been the case.

Carly Fiorina: I would have walked away from Iran talks & imposed sanctions

FIORINA: Well, I would have walked away because if you can't walk away from the negotiating table, the other side just keeps negotiating. And that's precisely what's happened. We have caved on every major goal that President Obama set, so I would walk away and I would tell the Iranians that until and unless they are prepared to open every nuclear facility, every uranium enrichment facility to full and unfettered inspections, that we will make it as difficult as possible for them to move money around the global financial system. We can do that. We don't need anyone's permission or collaboration to do that.