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societynews[dot] org
At a time when Washington is increasingly disparaged, Secretary of Defense Robert m. Gates is the last man in Washington.
It manifests in his appearance: he favors dark suits, white shirts and neatly combed gray hair.
In his last official speech as head of the Pentagon, Secretary Robert Gates has warned of a future ' dim ', if not sad for the American-European military alliance and the precautions of the drift of continents. (10 June)
His background: he has spent four decades serving eight Presidents.
And how he works: he is careful, conservative and consensus-oriented.
In his four years at the Pentagon, Gates became a vital force in the debate on the deeply unpopular wars. He was a manager of the Pentagon bureaucracy expert and earned a reputation as the Secretary of Defense more ruthlessly efficient in decades.
"He is an extremely bureaucratic effectiveness, and I mean that in a good way," said Eliot a. Cohen, a senior official in the Bush administration and Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. "He is simple, levelheaded and disciplined ... a judicious guy at a time when we needed sensible."
Gates prepares to leave office this week, the criticism of him is that he was more of an implementer of policies of its leaders in a bold visionary intent to change the military.
Gates bristles at criticism in a recent interview: "We didn't exactly have time to be a bold visionary in the midst of two wars".
His legacy as Secretary of Defense probably will be defined not by grand ideas but by his stewardship pragmatic of the two wars, and as the Washington insiders have long exercised the power.
Here are a few lessons:
A lesson: time to buy
Shortly after he took over as Defense Secretary in 2006, Gates said Gen. David Petraeus h., then Commander of Iraq, as he wanted to operate. "You have your space battle, and I have mine," Gates said.
Fight of Petraeus centered on insurgents and death squads in the streets of Baghdad. Fight of Gates was to buy more time in Washington for President and Petraeus war strategy to show the results.
His main weapon was the review of the Department of Defense. In January 2007, as the first of 30,000 surge troops were heading towards Iraq, Gates has planned a revision of September to assess if the new strategy of war and the reinforcements made tangible progress.
He employed the same tactic three years later in Afghanistan when President Obama sent 33,000 troops in Afghanistan.
The customer has helped Bush and Obama administrations to determine whether the military was making progress, and helped to reassure Congress. "They give people a sense that you actually have got hands on the wheel and are not just coasting along," said Gates.
The customer serve another purpose: they put out critical critical agitating for immediate troop reductions and greater reduction of U.S. goals. In short, they bought commanders of Gates some precious time.
"I consciously I used them for this purpose," said Gates.
Lesson 2: let them see you cry
Gates had earned a reputation for toughness after firing or replaced at least seven top officials during his term. But it also wasn't afraid to show a softer side.
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