U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates speaks to reporters in the heavily-fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad Dec. 5, 2007. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)From Esquire:
If the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents — and, now, the Somali pirates — have taught us anything, it's that the era of the "big war" is behind us. No one gets that more than our Secretary of Defense, argues a top global-security expert, and that's why his Pentagon overhaul will beat the backlash.
When Bob Gates took over as Secretary of Defense at the end of 2006, he stated unequivocally that one of his primary goals would be to improve America's ability to perform in post-war environments — to better fight an insurgency, really. Cognizant that our military might in conventional, big-war capabilities was driving all of our real-time opponents toward pronouncedly asymmetrical, small-wars strategies, Gates decided to end — finally, stemming from the days well before Donald Rumsfeld — the Defense Department's institutional bias against preparing for such "low-intensity" scenarios. Low intensity, he understands, has become the all-too-intense norm of modern warfare.
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My Comment: An interesting profile on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates .... a must read if you are interested in the man and his thinking.
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