Robert Gates said goodbye to the Pentagon yesterday after serving two presidents and spending nearly five years as defense secretary. On his final day, President Obama surprised Gates with a Medal of Freedom. Leon Panetta takes over today after serving as CIA director since February 2009. He’ll be replaced at the CIA by Gen. David Petraeus, who won Senate confirmation on a 94-0 vote Thursday.
In his farewell address in Brussels, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates delivered a blunt warning to America’s European allies: there is the real possibility of “a dim, if not dismal future for the transatlantic alliance” unless NATO member states undertake a firm commitment to increase defence spending and make a bigger commitment to NATO operations. As Gates points out, only five members of the 28-member alliance currently spend the agreed minimum 2 percent of GDP on defence: the US, UK, France, Greece and Albania, and defence spending in Europe has declined …
Amid a continuing war in Afghanistan, a new operation in Libya, ongoing military efforts in Iraq and a failing foreign policy doctrine, President Barack Obama has proposed cutting the already overstretched U.S. military by $400 billion. And today, he is expected to nominate CIA Director Leon Panetta to serve as Secretary of Defense, replacing the retiring Robert Gates. As Panetta stands for confirmation, the Senate must ask whether Panetta is the right man for the job of helping to provide for America’s defense. The Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano, Ph.D., writes …
In the ongoing debate about U.S. policy choices regarding Libya, one of the elephants in the room has been American aircraft carriers. Or, more precisely, where are American carriers, which could provide aircraft for enforcing a no-fly zone as well as protection for any non-combatant evacuation operation? The reality is that, when the Libyan crisis struck, there was no American aircraft carrier with the U.S. Sixth Fleet, which is centered on the Mediterranean. The closest, the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), was in the Red Sea. At this point, a week after …
On the way to a defense ministerial in Bolivia, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was asked about Iran’s growing presence in South America, particularly in Bolivia and Venezuela. He answered most cautiously: Bolivia, obviously, can have relationships with any country in the world that it wishes to. … But I think Bolivia needs to be mindful of the number of United Nations Security Council resolutions that have been passed with respect to Iran’s behavior. Gates said exactly what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last year. Nevertheless, at the defense …
In their most recent op-ed in The Washington Post. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates assert that “Until a new treaty comes into force, our inspectors will not have access to Russian missile silos and the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals will lack the stability that comes with a rigorous inspection regime.” Obviously, this is an effort by the Obama Administration to push the Senate to vote on the treaty during the “lame duck” session of the current Congress. But there are many reasons why …
With their meeting in Hanoi, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie are expected to revive military-to-military relations between the two major powers, on hold since the sale of U.S. arms to Taiwan at the beginning of this year. Yet, recent reports indicate that there is little actual warmth, much less trust, between the two sides’ defense establishments. Indeed, it is important to recognize that, despite the announcement that Secretary Gates will be visiting China early next year, the return of military-to-military contacts is the …
Over the weekend, President Obama notified House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) that he intended to allow the issuance of temporary munitions export licenses for C-130 cargo aircraft for use in response to oil spills at sea. On the surface, this measure appears non-controversial. It is not, at least from what is stated, a decision to allow the sale of C-130 aircraft to China. Rather, the Administration can claim, quite reasonably, that the waiver is only to allow C-130 aircraft, of any nationality, to land in China, as necessary, to provide …
They remade the Brady Bunch, Charlie’s Angels, and The A-Team—why not replay the presidency of Jimmy Carter? The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund joined the chorus last week with a piece titled The Carter-Obama Comparisons Grow: “Mr. Carter himself heightening comparisons with his own presidency,” Fund wrote, “by publishing his White House diaries this week. ‘I overburdened Congress with an array of controversial and politically costly requests,’ he [President Carter] said on Monday. The parallels to Mr. Obama’s experience are clear.” Nowhere does the comparison seem more apt than issues …
Late last week a federal district court in California struck down the military policy on service by homosexual persons, an activist ruling that, among other things, faulted the 1993 law on constitutional due process grounds. Next week the U.S. Senate is scheduled to take up the legislative repeal of the 1993 law using a process that limits amendments and ignores the expressed preferences of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of whom have asked the Congress to wait for completion of the Defense Department review …
