Robert M. Gates Quotes

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Robert M. Gates

Profession : Politician

Birth : September 25, 1943

There is no international problem that can be addressed or solved without the engagement and leadership of the United States and everybody in the world knows that, its just fact of life. So sometimes I think we could conduct ourselves with a little more humility.

Robert M. Gates

Well, I've ruffled a few feathers at all the institutions I've led. But I think that's part of leadership.

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

I'm a big advocate of drones.

Robert M. Gates

Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive.

Robert M. Gates

I have instincts.

Robert M. Gates

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.

Robert M. Gates

I had no concerns - I had no reason to have concerns based on what was available to me about North's contacts with the private sector people, but I didn't think a CIA person should do it.

Robert M. Gates

If Poindexter made a comment to me like that, it would have been in the context of once the authorized program is approved there would be no point in having any of these private benefactors any longer.

Robert M. Gates

Most governments lie to each other. That's the way business gets done.

Robert M. Gates

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.

Robert M. Gates

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

Robert M. Gates

I mean, when you get down to very low numbers of nuclear weapons, and you contemplate going to zero, how do you deal with the reality of that technology being available to almost any country that seeks to pursue it? And what conditions do you put in place?

Robert M. Gates

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

Well, Israel, obviously, thinks of the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel.

Robert M. Gates

I will always be an advocate in terms of wars of necessity. I am just much more cautious on wars of choice.

Robert M. Gates

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

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.'

Robert M. Gates

There's a lot of books out there about how you lead change in business, but I've certainly not seen any... on how you do that in public institutions.

Robert M. Gates

I've seen, all too often in my career, people coming in to lead agencies and organizations and trying to impose change from the top down. Never works. You never have enough time.

Robert M. Gates