On January 20, Robert Gates Will Leave The Building

Secretary Of Defense Robert Gates (Photo AFP)

From Westhawk:

The editors of Small Wars Journal have issued a plea for President-elect Obama to retain Robert Gates as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. I see very little chance of this happening. Robert Gates will leave The Building on January 20th.

Admirers of Secretary Gates see in him a man who has restored non-ideological civility to the Pentagon and the national security debate. They see Secretary Gates as someone who has compelled the Defense Department to get practical and to focus on the immediate tasks at hand, namely winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, they see in Mr. Gates a man who has not hesitated to slay high-ranking malefactors in his department for either disloyalty or incompetence.

Supporters of Secretary Gates hope that Mr. Obama will see that Mr. Gates is the most qualified man for the job, that he is a bipartisan figure, and that continuity is vital for success in the field.

These are all plausible arguments for retaining Mr. Gates. But there are other more compelling reasons why it won’t happen.

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My Comment: There are too many fundamental defense and security differences between Gates and Obama. Within a week or two I expect Obama's new Defense Secretary to be named, and the transition will start ASAP.