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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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Robert M. Gates
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: September 25
Air Force Officer
Politician
Wichita
Kansas
Robert Michael Gates
World
Military
Interest
United
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Budgets
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Global
Every
Defense
More quotes by 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
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
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
Congress is best viewed from a distance - the farther the better - because up close, it is truly ugly.
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
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
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
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 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
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
I'm a big advocate of drones.
Robert M. Gates
A wild and crazy weekend involves sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigar, reading a book.
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
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 there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience.
Robert M. Gates
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
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
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
Things have gotten so nasty in Washington.
Robert M. Gates
The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century.
Robert M. Gates
