On the foreign policy side, there's the risk of being too spontaneous and too disruptive where you end up doing more harm than damage. And figuring out that balance is where having strong people around you matters. — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
I think, on the foreign policy side, that there is a need for disruption. We've had three administrations follow a pretty consistent policy toward North Korea, and it really hasn't gotten us anywhere. — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades. — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
“I was seething. I told him that “the clock is ticking” and that our patience with their lack of political progress was running out.… — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
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… — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
“Obama was the fourth president I had worked for who said outright that he wanted to eliminate all nuclear weapons (Carter, Reagan, and Bush… — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
I had no concerns - I had no reason to have concerns based on what was available to me about North's contacts with the… — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
“The passage of fourteen years had led to another significant change in the international environment. As I told Bush 43 and Condi Rice on… — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
I've been very sensitive for a long time to the repeated pattern, during economic hard times or after a war, of the United States'… — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
I don't know General Michael Flynn well, but it's hard for me to believe anybody would allow themselves to be blackmailed by the Russians… — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
I had no difficulty as Secretary of Defense moving from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century. — Robert M. Gates Copy Share Image
