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Posts Tagged robert gates
Condi Rice and Bob Gates on U.S., Russia Relations
Posted by Brian in Opinion, Threat Watch on 11/Oct/2015 07:00
From The Washington Post:
One can hear the disbelief in capitals from Washington to London to Berlin to Ankara and beyond. How can Vladimir Putin, with a sinking economy and a second-rate military, continually dictate the course of geopolitical events? Whether it’s in Ukraine or Syria, the Russian president seems always to have the upper hand.
The fact is that Putin is playing a weak hand extraordinarily well because he knows exactly what he wants to do. He is not stabilizing the situation according to our definition of stability. He is defending Russia’s interests by keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power. This is not about the Islamic State. Any insurgent group that opposes Russian interests is a terrorist organization to Moscow. We saw this behavior in Ukraine, and now we’re seeing it even more aggressively — with bombing runs and cruise missile strikes — in Syria.
Canceling The F-22 Was A Mistake
From Foxtrot Alpha:
As if they suddenly came to an epiphany, the United States Air Force brass is now admitting what many of us have been screaming about for so long: We didn’t build nearly enough F-22s, and the F-35 cannot simply pick up the slack. So why aren’t those who pushed so hard to cancel the F-22 program being held accountable?
At the same time that the Raptor was coming online and proving itself, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, of both the Bush and Obama Administrations, was calling for the F-22’s demise. This was said to be due to the aircraft cost and use as “only†an air-to-air, destruction of enemy air defense, and deep strike platform.
Robert Gates Served 8 Presidents
From: Boston Globe
Gates is known to tear up when he talks to troops, particularly during visits to the war front. He acknowledged that in his comments yesterday, saying he knew it would be difficult to get through his remarks if he tried to include a tribute to the armed forces.
So he sent an e-mail message to all members of the military on Wednesday, lauding the troops for their courage and commitment.
“For 4 1/2 years, I have signed the orders deploying you, all too often into harm’s way. This has weighed on me every day,’’ he said in the note. “I have tried to do all I could to provide whatever was needed so you could complete your missions successfully and come home safely – and, if hurt, get the fastest and best care in the world.’’
Marines Deployed Near Libyan Waters
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 1/Mar/2011 23:20
Sec Def Gates is positioning the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge in the Med. What is it about the U.S. Marines and Tripoli?
From: Yahoo
USS Kearsargers
TRIPOLI, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi’s forces battled poorly armed rebels Tuesday for control of towns near the capital trying to create a buffer zone around his seat of power. The increasingly violent clashes threatened to transform the 15-day popular rebellion in Libya into a drawn-out civil war.
Amid the intensified fighting, the international community stepped up moves to isolate the longtime Libyan leader.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he ordered two ships into the Mediterranean, including the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, and he is sending 400 Marines to the vessel to replace some troops that left recently for Afghanistan.
China’s Military Comes Into Its Own
China’s Military Comes Into Its Own is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Rodger Baker
Chinese President Hu Jintao is visiting the United States, perhaps his last state visit as president before China begins its generational leadership transition in 2012. Hu’s visit is being shaped by the ongoing China-U.S. economic dialogue, by concerns surrounding stability on the Korean Peninsula and by rising attention to Chinese defense activity in recent months. For example, China carried out the first reported test flight of its fifth-generation combat fighter prototype, dubbed the J-20, during U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ visit to China the previous week.
The development and test flight of China’s J-20 is not insignificant, but it is also by no means a game changer in the U.S.-China defense balance. More intriguingly, the test highlights how China’s military increasingly is making its interests heard. Read the rest of this entry »
SecDef Gates on Wikileaks
From: Michael Yon
Q: WikiLeaks: Post-WikiLeaks reaction. What’s your sense on whether the information-sharing climate and environment created after 9/11 to encourage greater cooperation and transparency among the intelligence communities and the military led to these three massive data dumps?
And how concerned are you now there may be an overreaction to clamp down on information dispersal because of the disclosures?
A: SEC. GATES: One of the common themes that I heard from the time I was a senior agency official in the early 1980s in every military engagement we were in was the complaint of the lack of adequate intelligence support. That began to change with the Gulf War in 1991, but it really has changed dramatically after 9/11.
And clearly the finding that the lack of sharing of information had prevented people from, quote/unquote, “connecting the dots” led to much wider sharing of information, and I would say especially wider sharing of information at the front, so that no one at the front was denied — in one of the theaters, Afghanistan or Iraq — was denied any information that might possibly be helpful to them. Now, obviously, that aperture went too wide. There’s no reason for a young officer at a forward operating post in Afghanistan to get cables having to do with the START negotiations. And so we’ve taken a number of mitigating steps in the department. I directed a number of these things to be undertaken in August. Read the rest of this entry »
Gates: the fight against corruption needs to be Afghan-led
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 2/Sep/2010 18:03
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaks during the US Forces-Iraq change of command ceremony in Baghdad, Wednesday Sept. 1, 2010, as a new US military mission in Iraq was launched ending seven years of combat.(AP Photo/Jim Watson, pool)
“KABUL — U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that while the fight against corruption must be led by Afghans, the U.S. is working on new ways to prevent millions of American dollars flowing into the nation from underwriting bribery and graft.
Gates spoke to reporters in the Afghan capital with President Hamid Karzai, who complained about the tactics of two Western-backed anti-corruption units that recently arrested one of his top aides on suspicion of bribery, likening them to heavy-handed Soviet tactics.”
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2010/09/02/5030932-us-def-sec-afghans-should-lead-corruption-fight
Odds of US strike on Iran could rise after Gates departure
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 17/Aug/2010 18:22
Photo by: Associated Press
The chance that the US will take military action against Iran to stop its nuclear program will likely increase after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates steps down in 2011, according to assessments within the Israeli defense establishment.
The Military Tradition of Sacking Leaders
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Opinion on 25/Jun/2010 02:09
Frigate John L. Hall
“…the Army has to return to its tradition of getting rid of leaders who are failing. The Navy has shown more fortitude; in the first two months of this year alone it fired six commanders of ships and installations. On Tuesday, it fired the skipper of the frigate John L. Hall, two months after it collided with a pier at a Black Sea port in Georgia. The Navy stated simply, as it usually does in such cases, that the officer’s superior had lost confidence in him. That is all that is needed.
The Marine Corps has also largely kept the tradition of relieving officers — most notably during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 when its top ground officer, Maj. Gen. James Mattis, fired the commander of the First Marine Regiment. During his tenure, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has fired secretaries of the Army and the Air Force and an Air Force chief of staff.
General George Marshall
Back in World War II, the Army had no qualms about letting officers go; at least 16 of the 155 generals who commanded divisions in combat during the war were relieved while in combat. George Marshall, the nation’s top general, felt that a willingness to fire subordinates was a requirement of leadership. He once described Gen. Hap Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forces, as a fine man, but one who “didn’t have the nerve to get rid of men not worth a damn.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/world/europe/25petraeus.html
“Whatever happens, we just keep doing our jobâ€
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 22/Jun/2010 18:54
A US Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit had a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan, on May 18. The Marine was not injured in the fire fight. Goran Tomasevic/Reuters
Politicians squabble and play political game. Soldiers simply keep on doing what they are there to do, and ignore the bull****.
“The top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has been recalled to Washington to explain controversial remarks he made about leading Obama administration figures. But those on the front lines of the war say that the political squabble and inevitable fallout to come means little for them or the mission ahead.
But Canadian soldiers stationed in Kandahar Province, the birthplace of the Taliban and currently home to the war’s most intense fighting, mostly shrugged off the political firestorm.
“Whatever happens, we just keep doing our job,†says Canadian Army Master Cpl. Mathieu Jacob of Cap-Pelé, Canada. “Our job is our job.â€
