In Foreign Policy, a New Trio at the Top

"We have to be both internationalists and realists," Clinton said in a key foreign-policy campaign speech in 2007. "We can rebuild our alliances and restore our moral authority, and reestablish our leadership in the world."

Yet even her campaign speeches did not suggest a strategic framework for approaching the world, relying instead mostly on her unique biography and her exposure to more than 80 countries while her husband was president. "She is clearly very smart, and I have no doubts about ability to master the brief," said Stephen Walt, an international affairs professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "But Hillary has not laid out any particular view or blueprint about America's role in the world."

To be sure, Clinton will be charged with undertaking an agenda largely set by Obama, and transition officials say her confirmation hearings will be a forum to lay out that agenda, not hers.

Even before the election, a task force appointed by Obama had produced a 35-page report on the key issues facing the State Department and the new secretary, according to Wendy Sherman, a close adviser to Clinton who headed the State agency review team. A 15-person team then followed up with even more briefing papers, drawn from more than 400 meetings with insiders and outside groups. The State Department produced its own blizzard of paper, including unvarnished personal essays from each assistant secretary of state and every chief of mission overseas.

"She read absolutely everything. It must have run into the thousands of pages," said Sherman, adding: "She wants to hit the ground running. She is going to be thorough but decisive."

One of Clinton's earliest tests as secretary of state will be the current conflict between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where the heavy toll of Palestinian deaths has outraged Arabs. As a senator, Clinton earned a reputation as one of Israel's strongest defenders, even asserting during the Democratic primaries that the United States could "obliterate" Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on Israel and arguing that the United States should not negotiate with Hamas unless the group renounced terrorism.

Yet nine years ago as first lady, Clinton kissed and embraced Suha Arafat, the wife of then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, after Suha Arafat made inflammatory remarks about Israel, including allegations of using poison gas against Palestinians. (Clinton later said the translation of the remarks was incomplete.) She also called for the creation of a Palestinian state before the Clinton administration officially endorsed the idea.

Clinton, along with incoming national security adviser James L. Jones and other Obama officials, have discussed the Gaza conflict every day and have begun to map out their response depending on the scenario that confronts them on Jan. 20, transition officials said. Top officials already have developed talking points and contingency plans, but Clinton and Obama have given little hint on what they will do, except to suggest that they will move quickly to help shape an end to the hostilities and will be highly sensitive to the conflict's impact on U.S. credibility in the region.

Kerry, in the interview, said he believes that by Jan. 20 there will be a cease-fire in the region -- and that Clinton's first moves will be dictated by events on the ground. It is quite possible, he said, that she will start by appointing a Middle East envoy, and letting the most important players in the region know that the administration intends to be deeply engaged in either negotiating a cease-fire, if one has not already been arranged, or enforcing one.