OPINION -- “There are few things you can do that are more gratifying and more satisfying, and when you look back, being able to say that maybe, you made a difference in keeping the nation [the U.S.] safer or the nation better off.”
That was Robert M. Gates, who served as both U.S. Secretary of Defense and CIA Director, speaking to CBS News’ Face the Nation on May 18. At 81 years old, Gates showed that he still has a wealth of experience and insights relatable to the issues of today.
Starting with recent government firings, particularly within the Intelligence Community, Gates said, “The one thing that I would say concerns me, both at CIA and at the Defense Department, are the firings of probationary employees… This is the future of these organizations,” he said. “Most agencies should be reformed and should be made more lean and more efficient, but there's a way to do it that doesn't shortcut the future and also doesn't end up firing people that actually are really needed.”
When asked about current-Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s tendency to criticize the Biden administration’s focus on “diversity issues,” while emphasizing “warrior and war fighting ethos,” Gates said, “My view is that a big part of the warrior ethos is taking care of your people. Every Second Lieutenant learns that first thing…having a focus on being combat ready, on fitness, on those kinds of things absolutely makes sense.”
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But Gates added, “I think making sure we talked about various changes, such as the decision that I made in terms of women serving on submarines, and women going into the Special Forces and so on, the line always was, you can't compromise the standards. The expectations for women need to be exactly the same as they are for men and so a focus on that kind of meritocracy, I think, also makes sense.”
But Gates quickly added, “I think you also have to remember the military needs to look like the American people, and it does. And you can call it whatever you want, but we are better served, in my view, by a military that reflects the American people, and I think it does at this point.”
Gates acknowledged that the Pentagon needs to fix its funding issues and needs more money to fund needed capabilities. He also pointed out that the Department of Defense hasn’t had a budget going into the fiscal year, for the past 15 years now and suggested that alone was akin to a dereliction of duty by Congress, “because when you have a continuing resolution, you can't start anything new, you can't add to anything.”
Gates, whose interview came before President Trump delivered his own fiscal 2026 trillion-dollar defense budget, cited the massive ship-building gap with China as an area that needs attention, saying, “Between 2017 and 2024, the number of warships in our Navy stayed essentially flat. During that same period, China launched 150 warships. They have 250 times the ship-building capability we do…So if we're going to fix that, somebody's got to get off the dime.”
Gates views on foreign affairs also offered insights applicable to today, beginning with his look at U.S. engagement in the Middle East after President Trump’s four-day visit there earlier this month.
“I think, ironically, the Middle East may be one place where there are some real opportunities and possibilities [for the U.S.],” Gates said. “I think that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE [United Arab Emirates], are all so focused on diversifying their economies, reforming, modernizing, bringing their populations into the 21st century. It's a place to do business, for China, for the United States, for everybody else.”
Gates also said he believes that the actions Israel has taken since the brutal terrorist attack by Hamas in 2023, has changed the strategic equation in the region and in effect, has dramatically weakened Iran via Israel’s destruction of Hamas, a known proxy.
Although Gates failed to talk about Israel’s overwhelming destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza, he did say that he believes “it would be a very heavy political lift for the President to say he's going to cut off military supplies to Israel, unless they stop in Gaza. I think he can say a lot of things in terms of putting pressure on Netanyahu to stop the war. He can put forward proposals on how humanitarian assistance and other things might go forward. But…it would be very difficult for any U.S. president, I think, to say we're just going to cut Israel off from military supplies.”
Turning to China, which most experts agree poses a pacing threat when it comes to U.S. national security, the former Secretary of Defense said he is seeing Beijing being much more aggressive in both the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea, and that concerns him. “I think they put themselves in a position, if they chose to do so, to put essentially a stranglehold around Taiwan in terms of shipping and so on.”
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As for Russia and President Vladimir Putin, Gates said, “My own view, having dealt with him and having spent most of my life working on Russia and the Soviet Union, is Putin feels that he has a destiny to recreate the Russian Empire. And as my old mentor, [former Carter-administration National Security Advisor] Zbigniew Brzezinski once said, without Ukraine, there can be no Russian Empire.”
More than three years into Moscow’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, President Putin is not giving in on his demands that Ukraine sacrifice all four of its eastern provinces, that is accepts Russia’s claim on Crimea and that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO. “He wants Ukraine, basically, to be a client state of Russia” said Gates and Putin is ready to sacrifice for it.
“The complete reorientation of the economy for the military industrial complex, as you will, it is very much what the Soviets did in many respects and- and I think he's got 21% interest rates. I mean, the economy is chugging along, it's got positive growth, but it's artificial” he said.
Gates sees problems for Putin in the future when it comes to a market for the country’s only real source of revenue - oil and gas – which continues to be sold in spite of U.S. sanctions. “The problem that Putin has is over time, those are old oil and gas fields, and what was enabling the Russians to extract from those fields was Western technology, the Exxons, the Chevrons, the other big oil companies from the West that had the technology. That's all gone. So over time, the revenue stream from oil and gas from Russia is going to diminish, and probably fairly dramatically, but it'll take time.”
I couldn’t help but wonder, after listening to the full interview, who in President Trump’s inner circle is able to share this same kind of experience and insight. It’s something the president sorely needs if he is to steer the country through its most complex time in modern history.
Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.
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