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And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades.

Robert M. Gates

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Robert M. Gates
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 25
Air Force Officer
Politician
Wichita
Kansas
Robert Michael Gates
Would
Parades
Triumph
Victory
Became
Cold
Greatest
Joyless
American
Peculiarly
War
Triumphs

More quotes by Robert M. Gates

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Soviet foreign ministers would come in to see the president all the time, routinely. Jimmy Carter stopped that after the invasion of Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan resumed it in 1984, I think. And so the fact of a meeting like that I think is not that big a deal.
Robert M. Gates
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Things have gotten so nasty in Washington.
Robert M. Gates
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If there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience.
Robert M. Gates
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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.
Robert M. Gates
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I don't think any president that I worked with has ever said 'pretty please.
Robert M. Gates
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You know, if I were an - if I were a Taliban, I'd say, 'What did al-Qaida ever do for me except get me kicked out of Afghanistan?'
Robert M. Gates
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I didn't think this whole business with Director James Comey was handled well. So there are sort of day-to-day aspects of the operation that I think are really troublesome. And I know that there are a lot of people in the country who have lots of issues with decisions that Donald Trump has making on the domestic side.
Robert M. Gates
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Well, I've ruffled a few feathers at all the institutions I've led. But I think that's part of leadership.
Robert M. Gates
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Development is a lot cheaper than sending soldiers.
Robert M. Gates
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In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.
Robert M. Gates
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I think when it comes to the issues, I'd advise him to stick to the script. But, I mean, Donald Trump is going to have some very tough conversations and he's going to be talking about some very tough and complicated issues in all of the places that he visits.I think anytime a president does things that are humanizing, I think it's - it's good.
Robert M. Gates
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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.
Robert M. Gates
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No president is well-served by groupthink or by everybody singing from the same sheet of music they think he's on.
Robert M. Gates
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I think Donald Trump has gotten China's attention to a degree that his predecessors have not that this is a very serious matter for the United States.
Robert M. Gates
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I've been very sensitive for a long time to the repeated pattern, during economic hard times or after a war, of the United States' essentially unilaterally disarming.
Robert M. Gates
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The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century.
Robert M. Gates
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I've seen, all too often in my career, people coming in to lead agencies and organizations and trying to impose change from the top down. Never works. You never have enough time.
Robert M. Gates
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Congress is best viewed from a distance - the farther the better - because up close, it is truly ugly.
Robert M. Gates
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I consider myself a Republican.
Robert M. Gates
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I think in the policies that have been followed since the president Donald Trump came into office, there really hasn't been any slack cut for the Russians. And I think one of the things that has surprised people has been that the relationship between the United States and Russia has in fact deteriorated since the election.
Robert M. Gates