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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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Robert M. Gates
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 25
Air Force Officer
Politician
Wichita
Kansas
Robert Michael Gates
Think
Sheets
Thinking
Served
Singing
Everybody
President
Music
Wells
Well
Sheet
More quotes by Robert M. Gates
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
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
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
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
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
The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century.
Robert M. Gates
I consider myself a Republican.
Robert M. Gates
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
I don't think any president that I worked with has ever said 'pretty please.
Robert M. Gates
I read in the press, and therefore it must be true, that no secretary of defense had ever been quoted as arguing for a bigger budget for State.
Robert M. Gates
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
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
Things have gotten so nasty in Washington.
Robert M. Gates
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
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
America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long.
Robert M. Gates
Development is a lot cheaper than sending soldiers.
Robert M. Gates
Congress is best viewed from a distance - the farther the better - because up close, it is truly ugly.
Robert M. Gates
I think, on the foreign policy side, that there is a need for disruption. We've had three administrations follow a pretty consistent policy toward North Korea, and it really hasn't gotten us anywhere.
Robert M. Gates
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
