Gates’ Choice: His Damage to the All-Volunteer Force

In this space a few weeks ago, we discussed the peculiar case of outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He has spent the past month warning about where the U.S. security posture is headed if President Obama has his way on further budget cuts, if forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan prematurely and if many of the NATO allies continue to shirk their responsibilities towards the common defense. "Headed south" would be a charitable characterization of his assessment of that direction. Mr. Gates could not be more right, of course. It is deeply regrettable that all those in the executive branch, the Congress and the press who have, over the years, professed such admiration for him now seem so indifferent to his alarms. That is especially true of the Washington hands who so heartily welcomed the retention of the Bush administration's secretary of defense on the grounds that he was a "centrist," "non-partisan" and technocrat-turned-statesman. Bob Gates, we were assured, would serve as a brake on an untested new president with a record of problematic leftist proclivities. His own words now suggest that the brake was insufficient to the task.