Robert M. Gates Quotes

I just think it would be unrealistic to suggest we're going to eliminate every last domestic insurgent in Afghanistan. Certainly, the history of the country would indicate that's not a very realistic objective, and I think we have to have realistic objectives.

I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

This experience actually means the very opposite: the largest military power was unable to stop such a sensitive attack and will be unable to rule out such a possibility in the future. Precisely this is the background to the United States' military interventions.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.

Very near the heart of all foreign affairs is the relationship between policy and military power.

What I have learned about Afghanistan is that force carries more weight than anything else.

As the result of two successful campaigns, of the employment of an enormous force, and of the expenditure of large sums of money, all that has yet been accomplished has been the disintegration of the [Afghan] State … and a condition of anarchy throughout the rest of the country.

When it comes to the greater Middle East, McMaster brings to the table his own deep knowledge of Iraq and Afghanistan, countries where he served for many years.

Our troops shouldn't be mired in taking land for the Afghan military, providing force protection and fighting a permanent insurgency.

Here's some news from Afghanistan. We're sending more troops to seal up the borders. Can we try that here? Three months, 12,000 pounds of bombs and billions and billions of dollars and the highest ranking enemy we've captured so far is an American.

President Barack Obama started by accepting the military's counterinsurgency, but came out of Afghanistan having decided that counterinsurgency actually doesn't work.

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years … and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home … to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

To achieve something in Afghanistan is difficult; to maintain it is much more difficult.

We must have universal military training because the one hope for a peaceful world is a powerful America… with adequate means to instantly check aggressors.

There is no area where experience matters more than in war and diplomacy.

War is too serious a matter to be entrusted to generals.

As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.

I believe in peace through strength. I would prefer to rely on the military rather than diplomats to protect our homes.

As Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, in time of war, I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy.

I support the current operational position and tactics in Iraq, but we’re in a bad place, we didn’t need to be there, and we shouldn’t do it again.

Overruling the Joint Chiefs of staff, overruling the State Department, overruling the CIA, President Reagan Authorized providing Stinger Missiles to the Mujahedeen Afghanis.

Counter insurgency is something we can’t do, can’t do well, and shouldn’t be doing.

The civil war in Sri Lanka has been one of competition for control of territories between the warring parties .... Control of areas in the North and East province seems to be the objective of military strategy, rather than defeating the enemy.

UN administrators ... think that no problem in the world is too intractable to be solved by negotiation. These mandarins fail to grasp that men with guns do not respect men with nothing but flapping gums ... Just as the US Marine Corps breeds warriors, so the UN’s culture breeds conciliators.

I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore. I believe we need to figure out how to fight the war on terror and to do it right. So either we clear and hold and build, or let's go home.