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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
Triumph
Victory
Became
Cold
Greatest
Joyless
American
Peculiarly
War
Triumphs
Would
Parades

More quotes by Robert M. Gates

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America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long.
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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I'm a big advocate of drones.
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 have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet - and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful.
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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I will always be an advocate in terms of wars of necessity. I am just much more cautious on wars of choice.
Robert M. Gates
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Even when I was at CIA, I'd go to visit foreign leaders and I'd say, 'You know, I'm not a diplomat. I'm just an old CIA guy'... I said, 'If I wanted to be diplomatic, I'd have been a diplomat.'
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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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.
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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One of the big changes in the Congress since I first came to Washington is that all of these folks go home every weekend. They used to play golf together their families got to know each other, go to dinner at each other's homes at weekends - and these would be people who were political adversaries.
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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What I know concerns me. What I don't know concerns me even more. What people aren't telling me worries me the most.
Robert M. Gates
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I think that Iran with a nuclear weapon is extremely destabilizing. I think it could precipitate a nuclear arms race in the region.
Robert M. Gates
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One of the toughest battles in intelligence is combating conventional wisdom.
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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In government, I'm a strong believer in the need for reform of government agencies and departments. They - they have gotten fat and sloppy, and they're not user friendly. They are inefficient. They cost too much.
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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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.
Robert M. Gates