Robert M. Gates
Robert M. Gates
Robert Michael Gatesis an American statesman, scholar and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and was Director of Central Intelligence under President George H. W. Bush. Gates was also an officer in the United States Air Force and during the early part of his military career, he was recruited by the CIA. After leaving the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth25 September 1943
CountryUnited States of America
Some people have said, in so many words, that I'm kind of wooly-headed in believing that the Iranians would see not having nuclear weapons as more in their security interest than not.
There is no international problem that can be addressed or solved without the engagement and leadership of the United States and everybody in the world knows that, its just fact of life. So sometimes I think we could conduct ourselves with a little more humility.
Well, what I've said is that the war in Iraq will always be clouded by how it began, which was a wrong premise, that there were in fact no weapons of nuclear - weapons of mass destruction.
When I was the director of Central Intelligence in the early '90s, I tried to get the Air Force to partner with us in building drones. And they didn't want to, because they had no pilots.
It has become clear that America 's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long - relative to what we spend on the military, and more important, relative to the responsibilities and challenges our nation has around the world.
I mean, when you get down to very low numbers of nuclear weapons, and you contemplate going to zero, how do you deal with the reality of that technology being available to almost any country that seeks to pursue it? And what conditions do you put in place?
Well, I've ruffled a few feathers at all the institutions I've led. But I think that's part of leadership.
Things have gotten so nasty in Washington.
There's a lot of books out there about how you lead change in business, but I've certainly not seen any... on how you do that in public institutions.
Every time we have come to the end of a conflict, somehow we have persuaded ourselves that the nature of mankind and the nature of the world have changed on an enduring basis and so we have dismantle our military and intelligence capabilities. My hope is that as we wind down in Iraq and whatever the level of our commitment in Afghanistan, that we not forget the basic nature of humankind has not changed.
No president is well-served by groupthink or by everybody singing from the same sheet of music they think he's on.
The reality is, the United States has global interests. Our defense budget is about the same as the defense budgets or military budgets of every other country in the world put together.
There will be boots on the ground if there's to be any hope of success in the strategy.
One of the toughest battles in intelligence is combating conventional wisdom.