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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
Everybody
President
Music
Wells
Well
Sheet
Think
Sheets
Thinking
Served
Singing
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 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
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
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
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
The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century.
Robert M. Gates
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
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
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
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
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
America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long.
Robert M. Gates
Congress is best viewed from a distance - the farther the better - because up close, it is truly ugly.
Robert M. Gates
On the foreign policy side, there's the risk of being too spontaneous and too disruptive where you end up doing more harm than damage. And figuring out that balance is where having strong people around you matters.
Robert M. Gates
Development is a lot cheaper than sending soldiers.
Robert M. Gates
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
If Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us anything in recent history, it is the unpredictability of war and that these things are easier to get into than to get out of, and, frankly, the facile way in which too many people talk about, 'Well, let's just go attack them.
Robert M. Gates
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
I don't think any president that I worked with has ever said 'pretty please.
Robert M. Gates
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
