Robert M. Gates Quotes
… our record in predicting where we will use military force over the last 40 years has been perfect. We have never once gotten it right.
Military planning, like other kinds of planning, tends to be done by extrapolating the past and the present into the future. However, things change and trends are broken. The American (and most other) militaries have had a very poor track record and we have tended to waste at least half of our money/ The major problem is that we have no way of telling in advance, which half will be wasted.
Robert M. Gates, U. S. Secretary of Defense (Republican, Director of the CIA, Interview with Fareed Zakaria, CNN Global Public Square, January 19, 2014
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See {637854} for a quote on the soundness of our military planning.
See {633152} for more of the reasoning for this point. “Neocon” is a shortened form of “neoconservative”. At the time the neoconservatives were advocating use of military intervention in the Middle East. Munich was the German city in which British Prime Minister notoriously tried to appease Hitler and the Nazis. This led to WWII and has become the historical icon for appeasement of a powerful tyrant and the cost of such.
This is a variant of a famous Clauswitz quotation {635143}.
3 years later he led America on a huge invasion and nation building project in Iraq. It turned out that had he listened to his own advice and not flip-flopped, the huge cost of the Iraq War might have been avoided.
Four years later the President embarked on a nation-building effort in Iraq which was beset with many problems.
Charles Wilkes, a Union Navy Captain enforcing the naval blockade of the South, intercepted a British mail ship in the Caribbean and discovered two Confederate diplomats on board. He took them into custody to the cheers of Congress. England, however, was outraged that passengers—diplomats—on one of their ships was seized after boarding. This was technically an act of war. Abraham Lincoln, to the distress of many in Congress ordered the Confederate diplomats released explaining with this quotation.
One major problem at the time was that the Soviet Union was supporting and instigating revolutions in many parts of the world. When most nations of the UN wanted to provide peace keeping troops to quell the conflict, the Russians would veto and block the effort, Vandenberg wanted the UN to change the rules regarding the veto. The original right of veto for the major nations was originally included at the insistence of the United States and many Americans did not want to give it up or have any exceptions lest there be more. The Russians at that time also did not want to give up any of their veto powers. Another method that Vandenberg wanted to solve the Russian peacekeeping blockage problem was for America to engage in more collective security pacts so that action could be taken without UN Security Council unanimity by going around the UN.
- Born: September 25, 1943
- Nationality: American
- Profession: Politician
Robert Michael Gates is an American intelligence analyst, and university president who served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He was originally appointed by President George W. Bush and was retained for service by President Barack Obama. Gates began his career serving as an officer in the United States Air Force but was quickly recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Gates served for 26 years in the CIA and the National Security Council, and was Director of Central Intelligence under President George H. W. Bush. After leaving the CIA, Gates became president of Texas A&M University and was a member of several corporate boards. Gates served as a member of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan commission co-chaired by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, that studied the lessons of the Iraq War.
