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" 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
Will
Just
I Am
Related Quotes:
" I have always voted for who I believed was the best person. "
Robert M. Gates
Best
Person
Who
" 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
Humility
World
Think
" 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
Reality
Technology
You
" I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written. "
Robert M. Gates
Constitution
Congress
Wish
" I read in the press, and therefore it must be true, that no secretary of defense had ever been quoted as arguing for a bigger budget for State. "
Robert M. Gates
Budget
True
Defense
" 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
Like
Me
Point
" Defense is not like other discretionary spending. "
Robert M. Gates
Spending
Defense
Like
" I have always that there ought to be some kind of mandatory national service, not necessarily in the military but to show everybody that freedom isn't free, that everybody has an obligation to the nation as a community. "
Robert M. Gates
Community
Free
Freedom
" Things have gotten so nasty in Washington. "
Robert M. Gates
Washington
Gotten
Nasty
" 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 as more in their security interest than not. "
Robert M. Gates
Words
Security
People
" I consider myself a Republican. "
Robert M. Gates
Consider
Myself
Republican
" 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
Lead
Seen
Change
" I have tried to maintain civil relationships with everyone I meet - and, even if I violently disagree with them, try to be respectful. "
Robert M. Gates
Try
Relationships
Meet
" I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position. And it didn't have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong. "
Robert M. Gates
Economy
Look
Over
" I have instincts. "
Robert M. Gates
Instincts
" The United States has been a global power since late in the 19th century. "
Robert M. Gates
Power
United
United States
" I had no difficulty as Secretary of Defense moving from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. "
Robert M. Gates
Secretary
Moving
Difficulty
" If there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience. "
Robert M. Gates
Experience
Example
Alone
" 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
Said
Say
Go
" One of my favorite little sayings is, 'To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.' "
Robert M. Gates
Say
Nothing
Little
" 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
CIA
People
Person
" 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
Reality
Budget
World
" You know, if I were an - if I were a Taliban, I'd say, 'What did al-Qaida ever do for me except get me kicked out of Afghanistan?' "
Robert M. Gates
Say
Me
Afghanistan
" 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
Trying
Change
You
" 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' essentially unilaterally disarming. "
Robert M. Gates
Hard
Long
War
" 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
Early
Partner
Intelligence
" 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
Same
Music
Think
" 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
Weapon
Iran
Arms
" Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive. "
Robert M. Gates
Eating
Health
Defense
" I'm a big advocate of drones. "
Robert M. Gates
Drones
Advocate
Big