Quotes from 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.'

I have always voted for who I believed was the best person.

No president is well-served by groupthink or by everybody singing from the same sheet of music they think he's on.

When I was the director of Central Intelligence in the early '90s, I tried to get the Air Force to partner with us in building drones. And they didn't want to, because they had no pilots.

I think that - that the disruptive nature, the tough talk on North Korea, the military deployments, sending the missile defense system to South Korea, I think these are all good things to have done.

Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive.

Things have gotten so nasty in Washington.

I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position. And it didn't have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong.

If there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience.

The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century.

I think that Iran with a nuclear weapon is extremely destabilizing. I think it could precipitate a nuclear arms race in the region.

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.

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.

One of my favorite little sayings is, 'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.'

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?'

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.

I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written.

quoted General William T. Sherman that "every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster." And I concluded with General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell's warning that "no matter how a war starts, it ends in mud. It has to be slugged out—there are no trick solutions or cheap shortcuts." We

The challenge is to maintain a high-level, broad perspective, understand enough details to make sensible and executable decisions, and then delegate responsibility for implementation. "Microknowledge" must not become micromanagement, but it sure helps keep people on their toes when they know that the secretary knows what the hell he's talking about. If the secretary of defense doesn't

And then, after publication of Bob Woodward's book Obama's Wars

Core to leadership is the ability to relate to people—to empathize, understand, inspire, and motivate.

My adversaries were those with a traditional mind-set, the usual opponents of any idea "not invented here," those fearful that what I was trying to do threatened their existing programs and procurements.

The Nobel laureate Anatole France once wrote, "To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." To those who believe our institutions can be better than they are, I say, Dream. Believe. Plan. Act.

Blair had never been able to develop strong relationships at the White House, and I think the final straw was his single-handed attempt to negotiate an agreement with the French intelligence services limiting activities in each other's country. The idea had zero support anywhere in the administration and, frankly, was considered kind of bizarre.