Robert M. Gates Quotes

I think, Russia is pushing against the West in general, not just the United States but the institutions of the West, the key governments in the West using a variety of tools, as well as military assault on Ukraine.

Burma is located between China, India, and South East Asia. So it is quite natural that a country wanting diplomatic relations with our country would pay attention to who our regional neighbors are. It is not at all fair to ask a country to build relations with Burma but not take into account the situation in China. There is no way to think that taking the Chinese situation into consideration shows a disregard for Burma.

Russians are concerned by North Korea. I mean there's - this is getting kind of close to home for them. And so they're concerned. And I think certainly what we're going to start doing is rallying the troops again and say, ok, what do we need to do next?

So much of our attention is trained on the Middle East these days, but we cannot ignore East Asia.

Syria and Iran have always had a pretty tight relationship, and it looks to me like they just cooked up a press release to put out to sort of restate the obvious. They're both problem countries; we know that. And this doesn't change anything.

A lot of Iran's empowerment is a result of the war in Iraq.

When it comes to the Middle East, this is always a very difficult issue for any American president.

Pakistan was once called the most allied ally of the United States. We are now the most nonallied.

There is nothing in common between the United States and Saudi Arabia except Israel.

It has become increasingly clear that Pakistan’s chief aim in aligning with the West was to gain support against India

China is the one, the only one, that can control Kim Jong Un, this crazy, fat kid that's running North Korea.

To the extent that anyone has leverage over North Korea, it's China.

America is not really a strong enough state for us to regard it as an enemy of Russia.

Netanyahu's raison d'etre is to save Israel from Iran. That is it. That is his mission in the most profound sense. I have seen it up close.

President Trump say that relations between the United States and Russia may be at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

I don't worry about superpower confrontation. You know, I lived through the Cold War days, and where everybody was worried about a Soviet Union armed to the teeth. I think we're going to get along fine with Russia, and I don't see them as internationally ambitious.

[2015] it's a time that there's a clash of ideologies, similar to the Cold War. I think that a story like this has been waiting to be told, and I think it's a fresh look at the whole earth-shattering business of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I think if you could remove all of the baggage - all of the ideology, the history, whatever else - and look in purely geostrategic terms, I think it's hard to figure out why the US and Iran would necessarily be in conflict. In fact during the shah's era, before 1979 - recognizing that there were all kinds of other problems - the US and Iran worked together splendidly at the strategic level.

In terms of Iran and in terms of Saudi Arabia, of course they hate each other. That's no great secret. But John Kerry, who is I think doing a very good job, has tried to at least get these people in the room together because both of them are being threatened by ISIS.

The Chinese view us as an enemy, very, very militant toward the United States, and I don't even think the United States knows it.

I don't think that that's a desirable option for us. Besides, it wouldn't work, because there are too many other countries that are willing to work economically with China. But I don't think the basic relationship depends on economics. It depends on a political understanding of what is required for peace in Asia.

It's said that Putin can't stand Hillary Clinton. I don't know that for a fact, but it certainly looks that way, but I think her approach to Russia stands up pretty well.

The challenge is whether China as a rising country, the United States as the superpower, can develop a cooperative relationship in this period before nationalism becomes so dominant in China as a substitute for communism, and a kind of self-righteous isolationism in this country that substitutes China for the Soviet Union.

If one little old general in shirt sleeves can take Saigon, think about 200 million Chinese comin' down those trails. No sir, I don't want to fight them.

I do think that it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what's happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan. These things are interrelated. And if we are looking at the region as a whole and communicating a message to the Arab world and the Muslim world, that we are ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest, then I think that we can make significant progress.