Robert M. Gates Quotes

A feasible North Korea strategy must consider how to reassure China that our objectives on the peninsula are not aggressive.

I think Russia is dangerous, not a superpower. I know what the president is trying to say. I worked for him for five years, not just two.He doesn't want us to overreact. He doesn't want to go back to the Cold War and some superpower competition. But my own view, and I think General Mattis stated something similar today, is that Russia is a challenge for the United States. It is a threat to some of our allies.

You have North Korea, you have nuclear weapons, and China could solve that problem. And they're not helping us at all.

Our goal there, in my view, is to work and lean strongly on China to put as much pressure. China is one of the few major countries in the world that has significant support for North Korea, and I think we got to do everything we can to put pressure on China. I worry very much about an isolated, paranoid country with atomic bombs.

It's just a matter of time before we go into Iraq and get Saddam Hussein. I think just before Bush falls below 50 percent, that's when we'll be going.

America has to stand by our allies. I think the tension that existed between Israel and the United States was very unfortunate.

Russians are concerned by North Korea. I mean there's - this is getting kind of close to home for them. And so they're concerned. And I think certainly what we're going to start doing is rallying the troops again and say, ok, what do we need to do next?

I think, clearly, we got to work closely with China to resolve the serious problems we have, and I worry about Putin and his military adventurism in the Crimea and the Ukraine.

I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties. I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning.

Finally Germany's attack on Russia seemed to confirm that Russia was not shirking and was prepared to carry out a foreign policy with the risk of war with Germany.

Our policy for the last many years has been to deter the Chinese government in Beijing from ever coming into the position where they thought they had enough leverage over the U.S. to cross the Straits of Taiwan.

The reason the United States is not so likely to invade Iran is precisely because of the lessons learned from Iraq. And conversely, the Iranian push towards nuclear capability is calculated to deter invasions like the kind deposing Saddam Husain.

The United Nations passed so-called sanctions again on North Korea, and they've said they 'will exercise their preemptive right to a nuclear attack.' I don't think this ought to be taken kindly.

Iran's goal is not to become another North Korea - a nuclear weapons possessor but a pariah in the international community - but rather Brazil or Japan, a technological powerhouse with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons if the political winds were to shift, while remaining a nonnuclear weapons state.

You know, in the WikiLeaks cables, the Chinese discovered that Kevin Rudd was urging the Americans to keep the military option open against them. This is hardly a friendly gesture.

Many in China find it perplexing that the U.S. and Russian perceptions are still so heavily influenced by the Cold War.

By linking these countries together in his 'axis of evil' speech, President Bush implied an identity between them not only in terms of their threat, but also in terms of the action necessary to deal with the threat. A lot of work will now need to be done to delink the three, and to show why military action against Iraq is so much more justified than against Iran and North Korea.

We ought to nuke North Korea right about now just to give the world a warning.

I could have been very popular if I had launched a military attack on Iran but I chose patience.

China, North Korea's last ally in the world has just voted agaisnt them [in the United Nations]. What would you do if you thought every country in the world was against you and you wanted to survive? You would buy insurance. And the best insurance you could get to prevent invasion would be nuclear weapons, and that is just what North Korea has done. So now, when the President [Trump] threatens them, what do they do? They go out and buymore insurance.

North Korea is not even close to being a near peer to South Korea or, much less, the United States.

If we can deter the Soviet Union, if we can deter North Korea, why on earth can't we deter Iran?

We've got to keep our eye on what's happening with Russia and North Korea. We cannot lose sight of domestic policy, either. Healthcare. Immigration. Climate change.

Why should Iran have a deterrent strategy? Well, it's surrounded by hostile enemies. Both of its borders have been under occupation by a hostile superpower, the United States, which is constantly violating the U.N. charter by leaving open what they call the saying, 'all options are open' - meaning the threat of war.

I think what you can see is that we have worked very closely with China. China has really stood up in putting the pressure on North Korea.