Robert Gates: Defense Secretary's exit interview

“I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet—and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful. Whether it’s Congress or the press or students at Texas A&M [where Gates was president before going into the Pentagon], I try never to condescend. I try to treat people as intelligent, thoughtful adults, even [laughing] if they’re 18 years old. And it has an impact—more of an impact on the kids, actually, than it has on older people. But things have gotten so nasty in Washington that having someone who doesn’t take cheap shots at people or demonize them or question their motives, I think is unusual, and I’ve tried to be consistent.”

On Iraq:

Will historians judge the invasion was a mistake? “I don’t know the answer to that. I do know one thing: one of the supreme ironies is that during the Arab Spring there is only one functioning democracy in the entire region. As messy as it is, for the seven or eight months it took the Iraqis to form a government, they were arguing with each other and not shooting each other.”

On nuclear proliferation:

“North Korea now constitutes a direct threat to the United States. The president told [China’s] President Hu that last year. They are developing a road-mobile ICBM. I never would have dreamed they would go to a road-mobile before testing a static ICBM. It’s a huge problem. As we’ve found out in a lot of places, finding mobile missiles is very tough.”

“The problem with conceding that we will live with the Iranian or North Korean nuclear programs is that, particularly with respect to Iran, I think there is a very high likelihood that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons other states in the region will feel compelled to have them. I think it will spark an arms race, a nuclear arms race in the most volatile part of the world.”

“Similarly, what happens in northeast Asia depends very much on us. If Japan or South Korea begins to feel that our deterrence capability and our umbrella of protection is falling apart—that we’re pulling back—then I think there will be a temptation for proliferation there as well. So I think to just sort of fall back to the default of both Iran and North Korea being nuclear powers, accepting it and figuring out how to live with it, is very short-sighted. I think it significantly underestimates, if you will forgive the expression, the fallout.”

On Libya and the collapse of Europe’s militaries:

“Granted that the Europeans have had the horrors of two world wars, and it has made them loathe conflict and war. Yet they continue to live in the real world, a world where there are in fact security challenges. And they are kind of caught betwixt and between. It’s been too easy for too many countries to speak strongly about the NATO alliance and the need for solidarity in the alliance and so on. But too many of them are not just diminishing, but coming close to eliminating their ability to conduct any kind of meaningful military operation. We are seeing that in Libya, where eight of 28 allies are participating. So I see the danger of a two-tiered alliance: those who fight and those who talk. And I worry about it. Because the ones who fight are going to become increasingly resentful of those who only talk.”

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