List of Robert M. Gates Quotes

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.'

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.

Well, What I've Said Is That The War In Iraq Will Always Be Clouded By How It Began, Which Was A Wrong Premise, That There Were In Fact No Weapons Of Nuclear - Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

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.

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?

Things Have Gotten So Nasty In Washington.

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.

The United States Has Been A Global Power Since Late In The 19th Century.

I Wish I Could Set Deadlines For The Congress, But That's Just Not The Way The Constitution Is Written.

I Think That Iran With A Nuclear Weapon Is Extremely Destabilizing. I Think It Could Precipitate A Nuclear Arms Race In The Region.

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.

Well, Israel, Obviously, Thinks Of The Iranian Nuclear Program As An Existential Threat To Israel.