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Robert Gates on Homeland Security
Secretary of Defense-Designee
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We spend less on diplomacy than on military marching bands
[Defense Secretary Bob Gates] believed it was time for balance among what I was calling the 3Ds of defense, diplomacy, and development.
The easiest place to see the imbalance was in the budget. For every dollar spent by the federal government, just one penny went to diplomacy and development.
Bob said the foreign affairs budget was "disproportionately small relative to what we spend on the military." There were as many Americans serving in military marching bands as in the diplomatic corps.
We became allies, tag-teaming Congress for a smarter national security budget.
Source: Hard Choices, by Hillary Clinton, p. 24
, Jun 10, 2014
Principles of war: Never fight alone; never fight for long
[I am influenced by Brigadier General] Fox Conner--a tutor and mentor to Gens. Eisenhower & Marshall. Conner had three principles or rules of war for a democracy that he imparted to Eisenhower & Marshall. They were:- Never fight unless you have to;
- Never fight alone; and
- Never fight for long.
All things being equal, these principles are pretty straightforward & strategically sound. We’ve heard variants of them in the decades since--the Powell Doctrine being the most famous recently.
[Defense Secretary Bob Gates] believed it was time for balance among what I was calling the 3Ds of defense, diplomacy, and development.
The easiest place to see the imbalance was in the budget. For every dollar spent by the federal government, just one penny went to diplomacy and development.
Source: Link
, Apr 21, 2008
More funding for languages and intelligence in Iraq
RECOMMENDATION 73: [The US government] should accord the highest possible priority to professional language proficiency and cultural training, in general and specifically for US officers and personnel about to be assigned to Iraq. RECOMMENDATION 74:
In the short term, if not enough civilians volunteer to fill key positions in Iraq, civilian agencies must fill those positions with directed assignments, [including] tax exclusions similar to those authorized for US military personnel serving in Iraq.
RECOMMENDATION 77: The Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense should devote significantly greater analytic resources to the task of understanding the threats and sources of violence in Iraq.
RECOMMENDATION 79: The CIA should provide additional personnel in Iraq to develop and train an effective intelligence service and to build a counterterrorism intelligence center that will facilitate intelligence-led counterterrorism efforts.
Source: Recommendations of the Iraq Study Group Report
, Dec 6, 2006
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