Posted by
fact275 on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 6:00:00 PM
I know that many conservatives have praised Comrade Barack's retention of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Now, considering some of the people he might have selected, there is cause for a small amount of relief. But let's look at Robert Gates more.
Gates spent two years with the Air Force, but the majority of his adult career was spent with the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency that has often been at odds with the uniformed military in recent years. Gates served for about a year as Director of Central Intelligence.
In recent years, Gates reemerged on the public scene as a member of the Iraq Study Group, whose sole charter seemed to be to come up with a reason to withdraw from Iraq. Gates' ascension to SecDef after Donald Rumsfeld seemed to signal that President Bush was caving to critics of the Iraq War.
However, Gates has instead focused his attention on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been no friend to the United States Air Force. Gates essentially fired the Secretary of the Air Force, Michael Wynne, and the Chief of Staff, General Michael Moseley. The official reason for the firings was a number of embarrassing incidents involving Air Force custody of nuclear components. But many--myself included--suspect that Wynne and Moseley's advocacy for more funding to fix an Air Force that is wearing out at an alarming rate doomed them. Gates was also quoted criticizing the services for having "next-war-itis," that is, planning and preparing for wars with the likes of China, Iran, or Venezuela rather than the counterinsurgencies of Iraq and Afghanistan. As part of Gates dismissal of conventional war fighting strategy, he has been a strident foe of the much-needed F-22A Raptor.
A few years ago, Gates' strategy might have had merit. But as events with Russia in Georgia show, the days of conventional wars between nation states are not over. The Pentagon would be delinquent if it only focused on one type of conflict. Of course, the Democrats and many Republicans don't want to fully fund the Defense Department because it takes away from social architecture and pork spending.
AOI respects Gates' service in the CIA, and Gates is probably a better choice than say, John Kerry. Yet AOI suspects that Gates' focus on the limited wars that America is engaged in will give Comrade Barack political cover to cut other defense spending.