I’ll admit that all the media coverage of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ new book, “Duty,” is tempting. There he is, complete with post-retirement cervical collar, promoting (and defending) his book’s evidently withering critique of Obama administration policy in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Even harder is resisting the urge to devour all the analysis and reviews done to date, all based on excerpts from a book none of the writers have actually read.
As well, Gates is superbly prepared, by academic training, personal experience, and previous published writing to write just this book!
And yet, I’ll pass. First and foremost, because this book is WAY too early. Good on him for agreeing to serve two Presidents, providing a vital voice of experience and leadership across administrations in a time of war. But in my mind, serving a President, whether or not you serve to the end of their administration, should obligate one to keep ones mouth shut until that President is out of office. As well, many of the excerpts I have seen talk about policy decisions and internal government deliberations regarding issues about a war we are still fighting! For example, surely his comments describing presidential ambivalence about (and hostility towards) Hamid Karzai are not helpful at this stage of post-war negotiations.
Don’t get me wrong. If Robert Gates wants to contribute scholarship towards understanding these two wars, he is uniquely qualified to do so. I don’t begrudge him his effort to write himself into our history either. The timing of the book, however, suggests to me a third motivation – money. The book will sell well now, maybe not so much in 2016. That, I think, is an unworthy reason to write it.
Secondly, well, I’m just not a huge Gates fan. Many pundits say he is the best Secretary of Defense in the post-World War II era. I’m not sure this is much of a compliment. He struck me as another in a line of political appointees convinced he was smarter than anyone on his team. His legacy, I believe, is billions worth of rusting armored convoy vehicles DoD is giving away like lollipops in a doctor’s office, and major conventional weapons system upgrades inadequate for future warfare or cancelled outright.
I know, I know, stop fighting the last war right? His argument (and Rumsfeld’s for that matter) was for more special ops/drones/etc. because we are not going to need all these advanced fighters, ships, and Army Future Combat Systems to fight these insurgency-type conflicts in the future. Because, the argument goes, no more large-scale warfare right? Our economies are so interconnected, we could not possibly be stupid enough to fight another major regional conflict! So said the europeans before World War I.
As we shift our focus to the Pacific, I wonder what he thinks we will fight the Chinese with? Drop an MRAP on them?
What if the last war we are really stuck in, thinking wise, is the one we are in now? If he was wrong about our strategic outlook, the decisions he made as SECDEF will come back to haunt us big time.
I agree he should have waited until after the presidents term was over. The danger for not reading it will be listening to both sides cherry picking excerpts to further their own political agenda. Unfortunately many people treat micro sound bites as the gospel truth without doing their own homework.
Good point Chief! But I think I’ll still defer a bit – wait for the paperback at least…ha ha.
Your point that serving a president “should obligate one to keep ones mouth shut until that president is out of office” seems fine to me at first look. While I agree that on issues of security that may put lives in jeopardy one cannot stand on moral high ground when their actions cause harm to others. But if elected leaders are making policy decisions based on politics and angling for reelection and better positions in the polls than I say this book is indeed too late. The blood of our soldiers has been mixed with too much foreign soil to be a mere by product of “politics as usual” if this is the case, sooner will always be better than later for exposing such irresponsible behavior. And at a time when our leaders seem to be without principle, conviction or responsibility I think it is time that their actions be subjected to the blinding light of public scrutiny, and pray that the voters will become more discerning when casting their ballots (however I believe that is a long shot).
Well said Tim! See Dana Milbank’s article in the Washington Post today. He argues the book is indeed “too late.” If Gates felt he needed to take the moral high ground, he should have done so while he still had a chance to have an actual impact. Released now, the book seems like a financially motivated cheap shot, at least to me. Elected leaders ALWAYS temper policy decisions with politics, in every American war, it is what they do. So leaders like Gates, who consider themselves above that fray, have a responsibility to speak up and do the right thing while they can actually influence policy. Doing so in a “tell-all” later lowers his credibility IMHO.
Yes- Jeff! Very well put. My opinion of Gates is severely diminished now on account of this book. Shame. I would never sell myself out like this but I guess you just never know some people.
Jeff:
I agree with a lot of what you said particularly about the timing and the motives behind the book- money. Gates however was, in my humble opinion, a very good Defense Secretary and I’ll measure him by his deeds instead of comparing him to disasters such as Rumsfeld which is often what folks do. I was in the Pentagon from 2007 – 2010 prior to my final deployment to Afghanistan. Let me share with you my experience of the DoD from my first deployment in 2004 to Iraq (followed by 2005, 2006, & finally 2007) until my final deployment to Afghanistan in 2010 with my Pentagon time in between.
The services, particularly the Air Force, was totally tone deaf on what it was we were actually doing. You might remember General Moseley fighting tooth and nail against Airmen augmenting the Army in roles ordinarily done by soldiers. “That’s not your job” he told countless Airmen filled audiences even while thousands were deployed doing that job. How did it make them feel? It got so bad that the Navy finally offered to train and deploy their own Forward Air Controllers because the AF wouldn’t/couldn’t manage to keep up with the requirement. (I lean toward the wouldn’t). Instead he was fixated on a single weapon system (the F-22) at a $150MM a copy to fight a non-existent “near peer.” Meanwhile, airmen, soldiers and marines were dying in death trap armored HMWVs, a 25 year old technology, by road side bombs in a war were actually were fighting. I can tell you from personal experience on convoy missions too numerous to count how I hated riding in those HMMWVs. I was eventually blown up in an South African Riva but that’s another story. Because of Gates compassion, common sense and understanding of what the common person went through in a combat zone on the ground, (impossible for a fighter pilot like Moseley) he spent $45 Billion on the MRAP program which gave soldiers a fighting chance for survival. Maybe some might think that soldiers aren’t worth $45 billion and that the money might have been better spent buying 3,000 F-22’s that to date, have never been used in a single combat sortie, and designed to counter a force that essentially doesn’t exist. No single or even collection of military air forces in the world combined can stand up to our 35 year old fleet even now, but I digress. When I returned to Iraq in 2006 and again to Afghanistan in 2010, I returned to the MRAP. The troops loved them, I personally felt much safer and believe me their combat capabilities both in fire power and terrain, far exceeded anthing even the latest Hummer had to offer. I personally thank Mr. Gates for that.
The soldiers also had better equipment through PEO soldier – an Army program and innovation begun at the behest of Gates. Soldiers had better armor, better uniforms (fire retardent), better weapons and better communications sets all spirally developed and rapidly deployed to the field. Again, this on Gates insistence. He understood the fight we were in and didn’t worry about the so-called Chinese threat for now. never did understand that anyway. When I was in business we more or less had a rule- “You don’t try to kill you customers”.
You might remember the hysteria when the Chinese came up with their own aircraft carrier – really? We have 11 carrier groups! Why the hysteria? As such there has been a return since Gates left to the miltiary industrial complex now with the F-35 and other expensive weapons systems that I guess we mght use if there is an Indepence Day and we are fighting aliens but for now – nothing I see on the horizon. I guess Iraq is over and Afghanistan is ending so now we can finally get back to our “real jobs” – whatever that is supposed to be.
Now having said all of that, I believe if Gates felt as strongly as he is supposed to have been, (I have not read the book either nor probably will) didn’t he have an obligation to either resign or say something? I find it interesting that he releases the book now. Not in a year when it might have an impact on an election, but now. I am surprised frankly at the man. He never seemed to me to be an opportunist or a greed head. He always seemed to me in meetings to be intelligent, thoughtful and above all humble- a rare commodity these days in general and in this administration in particular which leaves me wondering why he did it.
I’ll be giving the book a miss too Jeff but for other reasons. Reading it and the contents will jusst piss me off and after having wasted the last 11 years of my life in 5 deployments and a trip to the puzzle palace only to lose one war and watch another spiral down the drain, ….. I need some time to heal.
Great comments from one who knows. One clarification on my piece, if I came off as anti-good kit for the troops doing the fighting, that was the last thing I intended. MRAPs have indeed saved lives, including some of my own troops. What I was arguing against is the mindset that this is the sort of conflict we should prepare for in future at the expense of other conventional capabilities. China may not be a “near-peer” yet, but with only 187 (minus the two or three that have crashed) F-22s, they don’t really need to be.
See Dana Milbank’s comments in the Washington Post – he says something very similar to you about Gates’ timing, that he had an obligation to speak out THEN, when his actions could have had an impact.
The number of 3,000 comes from dividing $45 Billion by $150Million – that was my only point. Not the actual number of F-22s which we paid for by “laying off” airmen like it was effing Ford Motor Company. I believe there is a special place in Hell reserved for Moseley.