Secretary Bob Gates Forceful On Force

On July 16, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates provided a tour de force on U.S. national security policy. Speaking at the Economic Club of Chicago before a notably attentive audience, he bluntly addressed life and death in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and beyond.
Gates savaged inefficiency and profiteering in weapons programs, providing hard evidence for the continued malign existence of what President Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell address termed the “military-industrial complex”. With direct but hardly dry style, the former head of the CIA and Texas A&M University provided key insights into managing what may be the most challenging enormous organization on earth.
The forum Gates selected is notable – he is the first Defense Secretary to speak before the Economic Club. In earlier times, Pentagon heads usually chose the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. The economics of defense were prominent throughout.
In a very partisan time, with intense rancor between Democrats and Republicans, he is particularly adept at bridging the great divide. Appointed secretary of defense by President Bush, he is the first incumbent to remain in the office after a change in party in the White House.
Gates is pressing an enormous strategic shift in the Defense Department. He bluntly criticizes Pentagon emphasis on preparing for unlikely general wars with China, Russia and other major powers, while our most serious immediate challenges involve unconventional wars. These conflicts, especially in Afghanistan, are now the priority – for the first time.
The Secretary is consistently notably specific in describing his Pentagon plans. Every weapons program currently behind schedule or over budget will be reduced. Prime targets include the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighter, Boeing C-17 transport, a Boeing program to arm 747 aircraft with laser weapons, the Army’s Future Combat Systems program, and the Missile Defense Agency.
As an alternative to the F-22, Gates favors the much newer F-35 fighter, which is half as expensive and can perform a much wider range of missions, including particularly important air-ground targeting. Underscoring his difficulties, the F-22 nevertheless remains very much alive in the corridors of Congress, and in the spending the politicians press on the Pentagon.
Discussion of weapons systems was balanced by considerable attention to personnel, an even more complex dimension than contemporary technology. Gates described the enormous strain on dedicated troops resulting from constant rotation back to Afghanistan and Iraq. Discussing continuing suicides, the man some criticize as a bloodless bureaucrat clearly was the reverse.
Gates addressed controversy over gays in the military, noting that specific law will first have to be changed to effect more flexible policy. However, in the meantime he has asked the Pentagon general counsel to search for available avenues for more tolerant implementation of current policy, and to prevent the problem of vendettas against gays currently serving.
Economic Club Chairman Bill Daley noted in his introduction that the speaker was the first CIA head to spend his entire career there. In the address, Gates described the special difficulties involved in managing very large organizations.
Dwight Eisenhower appointed Charles Wilson, President of General Motors, as his Secretary of Defense. Wilson became famously misquoted that what was good for GM was good for the U.S., but he also supervised a very remarkably comprehensive reconstruction of war-devastated South Korea, laying the foundation for that country’s ongoing economic and political success.
The important Chicago speech adds evidence Gates personifies this positive Pentagon legacy.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College in Wisconsin and author of ‘After the Cold War’. He can be reached at acyr@carthage.edu