BOOK REVIEW ARTICLE

A Provocative Look at Robert Gates Memoirs of a Secretary at War

Dwight D. Murphey
Wichita State University, retired

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

Robert M. Gates
Alfred A. Knopf, 2014
In this article, we attempt to do something that Robert Gates probably
never intended as he wrote these memoirs of his tenure as U.S Secretary of
Defense during the middle years of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. We
are taking his very readable personal narrative and probing deeper than Gates
himself has chosen to do. This involves taking seriously the many issues
raised by the wars and the policy decisions regarding them, all as touched on
in his book. The critique expressed here is intended to be provocative by
delving into a number of issues that can benefit from more thought.
Key Words: Robert M. Gates, U. S. Secretary of Defense, Iraq war,
Afghanistan war, events of 9/11, suspension of disbelief, American global
intervention, dangers and presumption in U.S. global role, moderation in
America, fighting insurgencies among civilians, out-of-control organizations,
American profligacy, conflict with Islamic customs, limits of compassion,
moral equivalence of mass protesters, Arab Spring, Veterans Administration
health care scandal.
Robert Gates was the United States Secretary of Defense from December 2006 to the
end of June 2011, a period that spanned the final two years of George W. Bushs presidency
and the first two and a half years of Barack Obamas. It was a span that placed him at the center
of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Gates is an eminently likeable fellow, and readers will
find his memoir of those years a personal account that makes the book open and inviting. It isnt
exactly light reading, since he discusses a great many policy issues and decisions, but because he
rarely probes below the surface he avoids entangling readers who do not wish to go deeper.
This surface-treatment is no doubt a welcome thing for the reading public in general, who
will want to enjoy him and his narrative; but it is not nearly so desirable for those who want an
in-depth, thoughtful discussion. In our critique here, we hope to examine seriously some of the
issues Gates book brings to the fore (or, perhaps just as tellingly, omits). Unavoidably, there are
too many issues to allow us to discuss them all. Because much of our critique will be critical,
sometimes sharply so, it is worth saying early-on that the intention is by no means to be meanspirited. Gates is the sort of fellow whom it would be easy to welcome as a friend.

Before we can talk about the book seriously, however, there is a threshold matter that
demands attention. Gates sees the world in conventional terms, and acted on that basis as
Secretary of Defense. Even though he had long worked at and near the top of the American
intelligence community (including as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1991 to
1993) and as Secretary of Defense, and for that reason can be taken to have been privy to the
innermost secrets of the U. S. government, his conduct and his book are premised on the
international scenes being just what the average person is given to believe about it: that Islamist
jihadists committed the 9/11 attacks, and that the United States and its allies are engaged in yet
another existential struggle of indeterminate length, this time with aggressive fanatics from
across the Islamic swath.
The citadels of established opinion, and virtually all the media, in the United States have
occasionally sought to rebut those who have raised questions about this scenario, but have
mainly tried to suppress those questions by ignoring them. That does not mean, however, that
those questions do not exist. A large number of serious and technically qualified people
including demolition experts and, among others, the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
think the evidence compelling that the World Trade Center buildings (including Building No. 7,
a 47-story-tall skyscraper that was not hit by an airplane and that is almost never mentioned)
were brought down by controlled demolition. They see a number of other discrepancies in the
official narrative. The implications are earth-shaking. They suggest we have been living in a
world of make-believe since 9/11 and that we are like the prisoners in Platos Allegory of the
Cave who saw only shadows on the wall. Quite independently of 9/11, we know that on a large
number of other matters inquiry has been suppressed, so that Americans (and through them
probably the world at large) see personalities and events in ways far removed from reality. We
have examined many of those matters in these pages.1 We will proceed to discuss Gates
account on its own terms, but this can only be done through what in theater is called a
suspension of disbelief.
A familiarity with Robert Gates and his mental landscape will be useful as we look ahead
to the issues we will discuss. In all, he served eight presidents during his long career. In
addition to the service we have mentioned as Secretary of Defense and Director of the CIA, and
nine years at the National Security Council, he has been in the academic community first as
interim dean of the George H. W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas
A&M University and then as that Universitys president. He grew up in Kansas, went to the
College of William and Mary for his bachelors, to Indiana University for his masters in history,
and to Georgetown University for his doctorate in Russian and Soviet history. Most recently, he
has become the president of the Boy Scouts of America. It is safe to say that he is one of the
preeminent men2 of his generation.
In a sense, he has been an archetype of his time, being someone who has fit in well. He
considers himself a moderately conservative Republican, which is something that has a
peculiar meaning in todays American context. His conservatism consists of not having been
1

Unless a reader has our prior issues readily at hand, the easiest way to find our discussions of
those issues is online at www.dwightmurphey-collectedwritings.info Many of the articles and
book reviews there have to do with piercing the sophistries that cloud so many subjects.
2
Were not unaware that a reference to preeminent men is ideologically verboten among
people whose opinions count in the United States today. That it is so is itself, in our opinion,
sufficient reason to use the description. Gates is, after all, a male.

among the activist, anti-establishment figures of his generation. His moderation, however,
somewhat belies that conservatism. Moderates in the American context are those who
acquiescence uncomplainingly in each of the cultural, political, economic and social initiatives of
the ideological establishment. They dont presume to lead the way, but they instinctively go
along to get along. There are many examples of this sort of moderation in the book, but one of
the best comes from a May 2014 Associated Press report about Gates assumption of the Boy
Scouts presidency: Robert Gates, the new president of the Boy Scouts of America, said Friday
that he would have moved to allow openly gay [i.e., homosexual] adults in the organization
but said he opposes any further attempts to address the policy now. 3 It is this nonconfrontational condonation that makes him so agreeable and lends itself to the easy readability
of his memoirs. So also does his ready acceptance of Americas reigning myths and his sliding
easily over disquieting historical truths. Most readers will nod in agreement, say, when he writes
of the fear that led Franklin D. Roosevelt to intern the Japanese-Americans.4 It is agreeable to
accept his statement that promoting democracy around the world had been a fundamental tenet
of American foreign policy since the beginning of the Republic What has differed has been
how to accomplish or pursue that goal. What this brushes over, of course, is John Quincy
Adams famous dictum that the United States ought not to go abroad seeking monsters to
destroy, a policy that was mostly followed until it was sharply abandoned in 1898 and that was
by no means compatible with the promotion of democracy through worldwide intervention as
we have come to know it.5 As we have seen, Gates received a doctorate in Soviet history, so
when he mentions the seventieth anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland but does not refer
at the same time to the Soviet Unions invasion that divided Poland with Germany, it is natural to
suppose that his omission is not due to his ignorance of history, but is rather a case of his
following in well-established ideological footsteps.
Gates moderation often involves endorsing the far reaches of a concept and then
seeming to want prudence in carrying it out, but not to the point of obliterating the goal. A call
for prudence in execution would seem sensible in any context, and is to be admired in itself.
And yet, we arrive at our central criticism of his worldview and of his performance as Secretary
of Defense. The broad concept he embraces is the same as that favored by nearly all factions in
American society today: that the United States should be both the policeman and the social
worker of the world. Thus, he would guard against policies that might diminish the global
security role for the United States, arguing that our security needs and responsibilities remain
global and that I strongly believe America must continue to fulfill its global responsibilities.
It is not surprising that his vision of the American role includes such a thing as having a robust
air and naval presence in the Pacific, especially in East Asia, in effect placing the United States
in the middle of the fractious relationships between China, North Korea and their neighbors.
3

The Wichita Eagle, May 24, 2014.

For this reviewers study contradicting the conventional wisdom that Roosevelt interned the
Japanese-Americans, see his The World War II Relocation of the Japanese-Americans in his
The Dispossession of the American Indian and Other Issues in American History, which can be
accessed free of charge at www.dwightmurphey-collectedwritings.info as Book 7 (i.e., B7).
5
For an excellent discussion of this fundamental shift in American policy, see Patrick
Buchanans A Republic, Not an Empire, which was reviewed in this Journals Summer 2000
issue, pp. 253-256. The review may be accessed at the web site cited in Footnote 4 here as Book
Review 54 (i.e., BR54).
4

When Russian president Putin criticized Americas dominance and almost uncontained hyperuse of force, Gates didnt acknowledge Putins point, but instead called it a diatribe. His
desire for prudence appeared when he didnt want another enterprise in nation building in
Libya and argued that we should not overestimate our ability to influence what would happen
after Qaddafi fell, but it is consistent with his overall mode of thinking for him then to do an
about-face. Accordingly, he praises the overthrow of Qaddafi, calling it a huge setback for al
Qaeda by giving the lie to its claim that the only way to get rid of authoritarian governments in
the region was through extremist violence. For us to see that Libya is now in the throes of
violence and chaos following the Wests (and United States) intervention does not require a new
ah-ha experience on our part; Libyas tribal divisions being what they are, the chaos was
predictable from the beginning. Its noteworthy that his view of American national interest is
expansive, since he says that something becomes a part of our vital national interests, even
though he might otherwise not consider it to be, if our closest allies feel that it affects their vital
interests. This opens up a vast field. It means, say, that if allies such as Israel consider
something a vital interest to themselves, we have an obligation to help them.
It is important to understand why the idea that the United States should opt for global
intervention to seek out and act against any injustice that draws the attention of the American
media and should minister expansively to the miseries of the worlds poor and of those who are
caught within inhumane cultures is both, as the cultural commentator Samuel Huntington has
observed, dangerous and presumptuous. The presumption is evident for a number of reasons.
One is that the American people are themselves in continuing ideological flux, so that whatever
they set up as the standard for others has no assured permanence even from Americans own
point of view. Another is that Americans, including their top leaders, have a profound ignorance
of other peoples, their cultures, divisions and history. Gates sees this when he says we had no
idea of the complexity of Afghanistan tribes, ethnic groups, power brokers, village and
provincial rivalries. Speaking of Iraq, he adds that our prospects in both countries were
grimmer than perceived, and our initial objectives were unrealistic. If this is so of Afghanistan
and Iraq, is it not true also of Somalia, Kosovo, Haiti, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine and of such
others as the United States may aspire to refashion? Yet another reason the world-intervention
role is presumptuous is that, even if Americans fully understood a given culture, the worlds
billions have their own preferred ways of life, often deeply rooted and with long histories. In
political terms, we would speak of their sovereignty and of the right of self-determination so
extolled by Woodrow Wilson. No doubt many of their practices are repugnant to Americans,
and sometimes even to any civilized person. But here, presumptuousness blends into
impracticability. Those who would reform the world stand like a child with a pale facing the
ocean. The will may be there, but the means are totally lacking. Not only is the ocean vast, but
it has more intricacy and depth than the child can ever imagine.
It isnt hard to see why such presumption is also dangerous. It may be helpful to cite two
examples that have the benefit of being far removed from todays context . One that comes to
mind is the killing of Nathan Meeker and seven other members of the U.S. Indian Agency at the
White River Ute Reservation in northwestern Colorado in September 1879. Meeker was a wellmeaning but pious representative of the U.S. government who was intent on reforming the Ute
Indians. He opposed their racing their ponies, and infuriated them by having their racetrack
plowed under. They struck a blow for their own prerogatives by a rampage known today as the
Meeker Massacre. The episode is reminiscent of our second example: the death of Ferdinand
Magellan. By April 1521, Magellan had almost completed his round-the-world journey to the

Spice Islands when he landed in the Philippines. He claimed the islands for Spain and sought to
convert the inhabitants to Christianity. When Lapu Lapu, the king of the island of Mactan,
refused to go along, Magellan invaded with a small force dressed in armor. The resulting scene
was not unlike the one that saw the demise of General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of
the Little Big Horn in Montana centuries later. Magellan and 49 of his men waded ashore and
set about burning the villagers houses. The diarist aboard the Magellan expedition later
reported that this roused [the natives] to greater fury. 1500 of them chased the invading party
into the water, where Magellan was cut to pieces. The whole episode illustrates the dangers of
seeking forcibly to refashion people who insist on their own right to life, and this is further
illustrated by the fact that even today, almost five centuries later, Filipinos restage the battle of
Mactan on the beach where it occurred, with the part of Lapu Lapu played by a film star.6
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have played this out on a much larger scale. As wars
without well-defined and limited end games, each transmuted into an attempt at nationbuilding on a Westernized central government model. The expenditure of lives, limbs and
treasure was immense. In both of them, what remains after the United States departs will be the
same welter of internecine conflicts as existed before the interventions. The Pashtuns remain in
place as the Pashtuns, and the Sunni/Shiite estrangement (complicated by countless smaller selfasserting tribes and sects) continues, not only unabated but exacerbated. The people there
continue their lives.
Neither the danger nor the presumption is evident to most Americans. A sentimental
naivete, fueled by a combination of hubris and ignorance, has roots going far back into the
religious history of the American people. It is what critics call the do-gooder mentality. It is
worth reflecting, also, on the fact that numerous interests play upon and feed off of this naivete.
Some of these are nation-states pursuing their ends within the world of Realpolitik. Beyond that,
the admonition follow the money is a good one. The military-industrial complex of which
President Eisenhower so famously warned would not exist in nearly so immense a size without
it. Much of the corporate world is intermeshed with this complex. And the vast web of NGOs
(non-governmental organizations) spread out across the world is itself a force to be reckoned
with, supporting thousands with often generous salaries. When we point these things out, we do
not, of course, mean to question the sincerity and good intentions of the millions of people
involved. Nor are we against doing good, if the sentiment is guided by realism.
If our analysis so far is correct, it means that Robert Gates service as U.S. Secretary of
Defense might well be seen in a very different light than he himself sees and portrays it in his
memoirs. What it suggests is that he was the very busy executor of a Fairy Tale. He gives a
good insiders account of the history of those years, but the disconnect between the harsh
realities of the world, and most especially of Iraq and Afghanistan, and what the United States
thought it was doing put Gates in a quizzical position. Let us suppose that the apostles of global
intervention, taken collectively, amounted to todays Don Quixote. That would make Gates their
Sancho Panza.
There are a number of separate points about the book that call for examination too
many, as weve said, to allow for us to discuss them all. There is much to think about.

See Laurence Bergreens fascinating account, Over the Edge of the World: Magellans
Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (New York: Harper Perennial, 2003), p. 287.

Civilians and insurgents. In the Vietnam War, General Westmoreland faced a well-nigh
insurmountable problem of how to protect a civilian population while trying to destroy an
insurgency that made a point of mixing with that population. He attempted rather unsuccessfully
to relocate civilians in centers away from their villages. The depopulation was intended to allow
him to turn large swaths of the countryside into free fire zones in which anyone present could
be considered an enemy. We know, of course, that things did not turn out nearly so neatly; large
numbers of civilians chose to hunker down in their rural villages. Although that choice was fully
understandable in human terms, it defeated the strategy that was intended to protect them.
The U.S. military faced the same problem in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gates says the
Taliban would hide among the population, use civilians as shields, and kill anyone who opposed
them. That was the context in which we were extremely careful to avoid civilian casualties
uniquely, I think, in the history of warfare. He adds that I dont believe any military force
ever worked harder to avoid innocent victims. When civilian casualties were caused by U.S.
action, Gates offered sincere condolences and personal regrets, and consolation payments
were made to families.
The military was, in effect, being called upon to square the circle i.e., to do the
impossible, at considerable risk to American soldiers doing the fighting. Questions that run
through a readers mind time and time again are how was it intended to be accomplished?
What were the rules of engagement for ground forces and pilots? Why has the issue not posed
the same conundrum as Westmoreland faced in Vietnam? Gates, however, seems unaware of
the difficulty, has no curiosity about it even though it was one of the hardest realities he faced,
and never discusses it.
Progress versus reality. Gates tells how he was floored at one point when President
Obama said to him I dont have the sense its going well in Afghanistan Gates then assured
the president that I believe we are making progress. The incongruity of this is apparent when
we recall that when Gates told of this he had just informed readers that there had been no real
improvement in the standing of the Afghan government outside Kabul, with little or no central
government presence in the provinces and villages and continuing corruption at every level
perhaps most harmfully by local officials and police, who routinely shook down ordinary
Afghans. Five pages after the passage about the presidents comment, Gates says a general
briefed him about how the choice facing us was a theocracy run by the Taliban or a
thugocracy run by the likes of AWK [Ahmed Kali Karzai, president Karzais reputedly corrupt
half-brother].
The idea that, despite it all, we are making progress illustrates, we think, Gates deeper
fantasy that there was in fact a way, given enough time, to achieve success in refashioning
alien societies. Consistently with his mental bipolarity, he eventually came to think in terms of
limiting the objectives, such as to train the Afghan army to prevent al Qaeda from returning;
but he wanted to continue an American military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan for an
indefinite number of years. He never discusses what a significant but limited force could
accomplish. Would it primarily serve as a trip-wire entangling Americans in future troubles and
forcing either an ignominious departure or, more likely, the renewal of an American combat
role? The overall picture is that Gates was a hard-working, intelligent functionary with opinions
on many things, but pushed along by events rather than having a consistent and realistic set of
goals. This was not simply his own failing; such goals were not available as part of the Fantasy
in which the United States was enmeshed.

The disconnect between policies and their implementation. Gates says I depended
upon others for effective implementation of my decisions. He could, of course, hardly do
otherwise. We are struck, however, by how the conduct of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars show
how little control people at the top really have over what happens down below. At many
junctures, one thing comes through clearly: that Gates was like the rider of a recalcitrant horse.
He was usually impotent, and realized it. This was something beyond his control, despite his
abilities and experience as a competent administrator of large organizations. One is reminded of
the wisdom of Marshal Katuzov as described by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace. Kutuzov, in
contrast to Napoleon, knew that he could put the pieces in place before a battle, but that accident,
unpredictable human factors, and the twists of fate would control once the battle got underway.
A good example is the inability even of the Secretary of Defense to control one of the
major parts of the military effort in Afghanistan. The following passage tells the story: There
would be questions about why so many of the additional troops Marines were sent to
Helmand province with its sparse population The Marines were determined to keep
operational control of their forces away from the senior U.S. commander in Kabul and in the
hands of a Marine lieutenant general The Marines performed with courage, brilliance and
considerable success on the ground, but their higher leadership put their own parochial service
concerns above the requirements of the overall Afghan mission I should have seized control of
the matter It was my biggest mistake in overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (This
can be seen on both a macro and micro level. It means that a good many young Americans lost
their lives or their legs in what they, their parents, families and countrymen thought was a
necessary sacrifice, when in fact it wasnt. There is untold tragedy and much culpability in
that.)
Gates had constantly to struggle with the very department he headed, seeking
responsiveness. One of the biggest challenges I would face throughout my time as secretary
[was] getting those whose offices were in the Pentagon to give priority to the overseas
battlefields, leading him to comment on that damnable peacetime mindset inside the
Pentagon. He found an unwillingness at senior levels to put dollars into providing the troops
[in Iraq] everything they needed for protection and for success in their mission. Gates wanted
the Air Force to use more drones, but ran into a wall of resistance until the service finally
embraced the future role of drones.
He wanted to eliminate certain programs, not to reduce the overall military budget but to
adapt it better to the type of wars the United States was likely to fight. He found to his dismay
that Defense is not disciplined about eliminating programs that are in trouble, overdue, and over
budget. Complex and overlapping offices led to calcification: When I sought to fix the
problems I have described, I came to realize that in every case, multiple organizations were
involved, and that no single one of them one of the military services, the Joint Chiefs, the
undersecretary for acquisition, the comptroller -- had the authority to compel action by the
others. To cut through this bureaucracy, Gates found it necessary to create special task forces
separate from the formal structure.
The problems went far beyond the convolutions of the Department of Defense, which
Gates describes as the largest, most complex organization on the planet. Part was attributable
to political imperatives within Congress, which, to satisfy each senator and representatives local
constituents, requires the military services to keep excess bases and facilities and to buy
equipment that is no longer needed or is obsolete. Even the White House contributed to the

Tower of Babel effect: I could already see a president [Obama] and White House staff, as so
many before them, seeking total control and trying to centralize all power and credit for all
achievements. When the Libyan crisis arose, Gates was furious with the White House
advisers and the NSS [National Security Staff] [for] talking about military options with the
president without Defense being involved. Especially galling was that there were people in the
White House advising the president on foreign policy issues that they knew nothing about.
There was little coordination in the conduct of the wars. Gates gives an example in the
area of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Each military service was
pursuing its own programs, there was no coordination in acquisition, and no one person was in
charge to ensure interoperability in combat conditions. The undersecretary of defense for
intelligence, the CIA with its drones (mainly flown by the military), and the director of national
intelligence all had their own agendas. It was a mess.
We are told that President George W. Bush created an NSC war czar in 2007 charged
with coordinating the military and civilian components of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This was years after the latter started in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Even this belated
move must not have solved the U.S. command and control problem, however, because in early
2010 Gates found it necessary to bring all American troops (including both special operations
and the Marines) under the U.S. theater commander, at last establishing unity of command.
It had taken far too long to get there, and that was my fault, Gates says, taking on himself
blame for something that was at least equally the responsibility of the presidents and of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
Incompetence and profligacy. The enormous civilian input into each war effort was not
within the Secretary of Defenses domain. Nevertheless, our review of the disconnect between
policies and their implementation would be incomplete if we did not note how incompetent and
profligate the American performance was on the civilian side. The size of the undertakings is
indicated by an Associated Press report in March 2013: To date, the U.S. has spent more than
$60 billion in reconstruction grants to help Iraq. In Afghanistan, U.S. taxpayers have so far
spent $90 billion in reconstruction projects during the 12-year military campaign.
The AP account tells how the final report to Congress by the Special Inspector General
for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) cited multiple examples of thwarted or defrauded projects,
laying bare a trail of waste. Among them: The U.S. began building a 3,600-bed prison in
2004 but abandoned the project [It] cost American taxpayers $40 million but sits in rubble.
Subcontractors overcharged the U.S. government thousands of dollars, including $900 for
a control switch valued at $7.05 and $80 for a piece of pipe that costs $1.41. An attempt was
made to rebuild a destroyed pipeline under the Tigris River, but a geological study predicted the
project might fail, and it did, costing an additional cost of $29 million over the initial $75
million.
Two books already reviewed in these pages have given similar accounts of out-of-control
waste. One that had to do with Iraq was Peter Van Burens We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose
the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.7 The author, who served as a U.S. State
Department Foreign Service officer in Iraq, found opportunism, careerism, indifference, failures
of communication, short-termism, a love of hype, obliviousness to reality, bureaucratic make7

Our review of this book can be accessed free of charge at www.dwightmurpheycollectedwritings.info as Book Review 160 (i.e., BR160).

believe, prodigality and corruption. Profiteering was, of course, part of the opportunism; a
$150 billion pot was inevitably a magnet for those ready to take advantage of it. Van Buren
illustrates all of this with graphic instances.
The other book had to do with Afghanistan: Rajiv Chandrasekarans Little America: The
War Within the War for Afghanistan.8 The author was a senior correspondent for The
Washington Post. He reported one abortive project after another, including a sprawling
commercial farm with miles of strawberry fields, costing several million dollars before USAID
officials realized the groundwater and soil were too salty to grow crops. The construction of
a cobblestone road had to be abandoned after local leaders [who had not been consulted ahead
of time] complained that the cobblestones hurt their camels hooves. Chandrasekaran said
International Relief and Development spent several million dollars to buy thousands of
gasoline-operated pumps but when provincial leaders got word of the plan, they howled. The
pumps, they argued, would suck the canals [from which the pumps were to draw water] down to
the mud, leaving farmers downstream high and dry. Since the pumps couldnt be returned, they
were left in warehouses to gather dust.
Need to respect Afghan customs. Gates was critical of the fact that we often
disrespected their [the Afghans] culture or Islam and failed to cultivate their elders, saying that
respect for the Afghans and their customs was critical. It is not surprising, then, that he never
mentions the proselytizing the United States has done in Afghanistan for womens rights as seen
through Western eyes.
The drive for change has been an active one. Jenna Pickett of Virginia Military tells us
that throughout the first [George W.] Bush administration a series of public pronouncements
and reports painted an optimistic picture of improvement in the conditions of Afghan women
following the U.S. invasion. In 2013, Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer told how at
a recent Georgetown University symposium, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and John Kerry all
urged Americans not to abandon Afghan women after U.S. troops exit next year.
It is often said that the United States is not at war with Islam, but only with Islamist
jihadists. It is difficult to square this, however, with the United States effort to refashion
several Islamic societies in a Western image. This involves promoting democracy while at the
same time rejecting elections won by Islamic majorities, and pushing hard for a version of
human rights that seeks in many ways to abolish differences between men and women. It also
promotes the universal acceptance of homosexuality.
Whatever the merit of these positions, it is clear that they are sharply at odds with Islamic
beliefs and customs. Pickett, whom we have just quoted, went on to observe that cultural
attitudes in Afghanistan strongly resisted the progressive changes being introduced by the Bush
administration and its Afghan partners. Ida Lichter in the Huffington Post says it more
graphically: The public execution of Najiba, a woman accused of adultery, is testament to the
brutal customary laws of Taliban and Pashtun cultural practice in Afghanistan. Other examples
of increasing recent violence against Afghan women include the rape and torture of 18-year-old
Lal Bibi by Afghan Local Police and the assassination of Hanifa Safi, the provincial head of
women's affairs in Laghman province.
We cant help but think that when Gates does not see the wide gulf between American
aspirations and his call for respecting Afghan customs, it illustrates again a failure to come to
8

The review of Chandrasekarans book is Book Review 162 on the same website.

grips with realities. Respecting their customs sounds good, but surely the matter shouldnt be
left at that; it calls for serious thought.
Compassion for the troops. Gates expresses his deep feeling for the troops and their
families. He tells how I was overwhelmed when a mother told him I have two sons in Iraq.
For Gods sake, please bring them home alive. He felt the weight of this responsibility the
entire time he served as Secretary of Defense, and he mentions it many times.
As with so much else, though, this is mixed with incongruity. We need not belabor the
point already made that the wars went on interminably without realistic objectives. When Gates
repeatedly wanted more time for increased military efforts, and an eventual indefinitely-long
presence in both countries, this all called for more lives lost and catastrophic injuries.
This in itself is not hard to understand. Even the most caring military leaders, those who
would hope to keep casualties to a minimum, often have to subordinate their compassion to the
imperatives of war. What is not nearly so easy to understand is the instance in which Gates
sought to consult the troops on a major issue affecting them directly, and then brusquely
brushed aside their opinions, asserting their duty to comply. This occurred when the issue came
up of whether dont ask, dont tell should be repealed and homosexuals should be allowed to
serve openly. Gates established a Pentagon working group to consult the troops. The result
was that the survey showed substantial resistance among combat forces. The commandant of
the Marine Corps was among those strongly opposed. The survey, though, turned out to be
entirely for show. Gates reversed himself, and said he spoke rather brusquely to the effect that
I cant think of a single precedent in American history of doing a referendum of the American
armed forces on a policy issue. In bankruptcy law, there is such a thing as cram-down. A
similar thing was applied by Gates on the homosexuality issue. Despite the survey, he applied
the usual military principle of disciplined obedience, with the bottom line being shut up and do
as youre told.
But our discussion should go further. Observers of American culture since World War II
will do well to notice that allowing the open service of homosexuals is, in fact, considered
compassionate by establishment opinion. For many years, compassion toward the feelings of the
majority has rarely been considered, on this and other issues. This may seem a strange
convolution of value preferences, but it is not hard to understand when we consider that for well
over a century the American intelligentsia has harbored a deep alienation toward virtually every
element of the American majority. It comes rather naturally, from that perspective, to think of
those who do not welcome sharing a foxhole or shower stall with a homosexual a bigot, and
hence someone to whom there is no need to extend compassion.
Continuing an odd moral equivalency. Governments throughout the world, including
those that are clearly legitimate when judged by democratic principles and others that are
otherwise rooted, are today subject more than ever to mob-action coups detat. Such challenges
have always existed, but they are heightened when cell phones, texting and tweeting make
possible a rapid mobilizing of large masses of people.
The international community has long entertained an odd moral equivalency that insists
that even stone- and Molotov cocktail-throwing crowds must be given obeisance by the existing
authorities. We recall scenes in South Korea, say, where crowds of young men threw Molotov
cocktails at lines of policemen passively protecting themselves with large shields. There has for
many years been a quizzical diffidence in acting against such mob action. Situations in which it
arises vary across a broad spectrum, which makes one wonder why there should be a per se norm

covering the subject. Although this may seem a minor subject compared to the others we have
discussed, the international context today makes it foolish to consider it so. Peoples everywhere
should question whether the diffidence will at all times serve them well, rather than accept it
unthinkingly.
In January 2011, Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, whom Gates describes as
a dictator who had been in power for more than twenty years, was overthrown by mass
protests, called together by electronic media. U.S. President Obama ostensibly stayed neutral as
he invoked the usual expectation, condemning the use of violence against peaceful
demonstrators. The call for governmental restraint was far from neutral in effect, however, as
we see from the success of the coup. In his State of the Union address shortly thereafter, Obama
made it clear that neutrality was not what he hoped the effect would be: the United States, he
said, stands with the people of Tunisia and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.
A long period of political turmoil has ensued in Tunisia between contending secular and Islamic
parties.
A similar coup occurred not long after that in Egypt, where, as Gates tell us, young,
Internet-savvy Egyptians read Facebook pages and blogs about developments in Tunisia and in
the latter half of January began to organize their own demonstrations at Tahrir Square in Cairo.
Some members of the Obama administration questioned whether the overthrow of Egyptian
president Hosni Mubarak, a long-time ally, would serve American interests. Gates, however,
argued that our course should be to call for an orderly transition. He phoned the Egyptian
minister of defense and urged him to ensure that the army would exercise restraint in dealing
with the protesters. Mubarak offered several compromises to his opposition, but the mass
action escalated until he was overthrown. Eventually, elections were held and were won by the
Muslim Brotherhood and the ultraconservative Islamist Salafist Party, who installed
Mohammed Morsi as the new president. It wasnt long before the army overthrew him. Gates
says whether they will give genuine democracy another chance remains to be seen. There was
no condemnation of the overthrow of the elected Islamic government.
Libya was the next domino to fall in the Arab Spring. Its long-time dictator Muammar
Qaddafi acted ruthlessly to protect his regime against mass protests that were again called
together by the ubiquitous electronic media. Gates says the UN Security Council condemned
the use of force against civilians. In the ensuing civil war, Qaddafi was overthrown and
murdered. In Libyas case, the aftermath has been an anarchy of contending militias and
intertribal warfare.
The question of how to defend its existing government against large demonstrations is of
especial importance to any nation that may be targeted by the United States for regime change.
Mass action has become a major instrument of foreign intervention. The Obama administration
was especially active in promoting the mass-action ouster of the elected government in Ukraine,
and has been quick to legitimize the government installed after the coup. It hasnt all turned out
well, it seems so far, from the official American point of view, as Ukraine has lost Crimea and
may ultimately lose its predominantly Russian-speaking eastern industrial sectors. Russia,
China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and any number of others are subject to future challenge by mass
action, either spontaneous or manufactured. In the long run, the United States would do well not
to assume itself immune.
Our interest here is in critiquing the conventional wisdom held to by Gates and most
others in the international community. The automatic assumption of moral equivalency

between demonstrators (who may or may not be truly representative of a population as a whole)
and a given government is dubious if taken as a given.
The Veterans Administration health care scandal. It will surprise many Americans that
the scandal that has erupted in the spring and summer of 2014 about the health care given to
veterans by the V.A. system has a long history, much of which is recounted by Gates, who we
know left office three years earlier. He devotes an 8-page section to problems in the treatment of
wounded warriors, telling of his many frustrations in trying to make the system responsive.
The Walter Reed Medical Center scandal broke on his watch, brought to his attention by articles
in The Washington Post. We will leave it to readers of his memoir to see the details. It is
sufficient to say that the problem was much larger, and long-lasting, than just a scandal at one
facility. Looking ahead prophetically, he writes that outpatient and posthospitalization
treatment of the wounded and their families was a scandal waiting to happen.
Gates is careful to mention that the problem is rooted not just in a lack of leadership and
bureaucratic bungling, but in the exigencies brought about by two long wars. Because no one
had expected a long war or so many wounded, no one had planned for or allocated the necessary
resources.
Many untouched subjects. As we have seen, Duty is a memoir of Gates years as U.S.
Secretary of Defense, not a thoughtful explication of the many subjects about which a Secretary
of Defense would have intimate knowledge. Because it leaves so much unanswered, it is a
disappointment to those who would care for more. Here are some of the subjects (among many
others) that might well have been explored:
Whether he has acquainted himself with the evidence casting doubt on the conventional
account of 9/11; and, if so, why he thinks that account is sound.
Why he embraced the goal of a unified central government in Iraq in preference to a
tripartite division of Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish governments either as separate nations
or as self-governing parts of a federation.
What his rationales have been for some of his preferences. We are thinking of such
things as the closing of the Guantanamo prison facility and the welcoming of open
homosexuality in the military.
What he can tell readers about the tribal, religious and ethnic complexities with which the
United States has been dealing in Iraq and Afghanistan. He never discusses who the Taliban are,
their relation to the Pashtuns, the role of warlords in Afghanistan; and similarly, with respect
to Iraq, the equally great intricacies of its demographic. Although we assume that know your
enemy (as well as potential friends) is important, Gates sheds no light on even so central an
element.
How he thinks it has been feasible to reconcile with the Taliban, which he mentions
from time to time. This is brought up casually as though it does not cry out for explanation.
Why it takes so many years to train the Iraqi (or Afghan) army; and why the soldiers,
once trained, fight so poorly compared to how their countrymen fight for their own tribes or local
militias. In other words, has it been realistic to predicate American strategy on an assumption
that the citizens of either country will be motivated to fight for a secularized central government?
Why it is considered in the national interest of the United States to continue giving vast
military support to Taiwan several years after the end of the Cold War despite the large-scale
business interplay between Taiwan and mainland China; why South Korea, with a population

and economy much larger than North Koreas still requires American protection 61 years after
combat ended in the Korean peninsula; and why Europe cannot handle and pay for its own
defense.
Why the invasion of the United States by millions of illegal immigrants is not a vital
concern to a Secretary of Defense.
What explanation can be given to the American public about the status of the prisoner of
war issue. The black and white POW flag flew prominently under the American flag at the
2014 Capitol Fourth independence day festivities on the Washington Mall, and is seen all over
the country. Its reasonable to ask why. Is the issue still open regarding prisoners abandoned
after past wars, or are the flags kept flying as simply empty dumb show? Secretaries of Defense
should be able to tell us. The issue is important in its own right, but further raises the question of
how so many things such as this one can attract so little curiosity, thought or genuine concern.
Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War is a readable book by a sympathetic public figure. What
we have sought to do here, however, has been to take the book seriously. We would hope that
Gates will find time to write a follow-up considering the many things his memoirs have left
unanswered.