Transcription
On Friday, we traveled to William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, to speak with former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. We began with that warning from President Xi that the issue of Taiwan could lead to an extremely dangerous situation if not managed carefully. The US still officially has this stance of strategic ambiguity. But do you think the tone needs to shift a little bit from the United States, given how strong the Chinese rhetoric is now?
I think the Chinese rhetoric has often been strong in the past when it comes to Taiwan. Whenever we've made an arms sale to Taiwan in the past, the Bush administration, the Obama administration, and so on, the Chinese rhetoric gets very, very strong. And so I think Xi was reiterating the Chinese position on that. I think it would be a mistake to change the carefully worded position of the United States with respect to Taiwan. Any change at all. The nuances, this is one of those things where the experts parse these things down to the tenths of the verbs and so on. So I think keeping things, the US position as it has been, was important, and I think everything I've read so far indicates that the president did that. So leave it open to question whether the US would militarily come to the defense of Taiwan if China were to move on it. That needs to be an open question.
Well, on paper, the president has made significant pledges to Taiwan in terms of promised arms sales, not delivered on yet. There's another $14 billion in proposed weapon sales that the Trump administration has delayed approving. Do you think the president should greenlight that?
I think he should. I think we should go forward with what we've agreed with Taiwan. One of the concerns that I have is, even with respect to previous arms sales, there is a huge backlog of weapons that we have sold to Taiwan that we have not been able to deliver because we don't have the supplies. And so if you're offering another $14 billion, is that just going to be added to the backlog, or is there a way forward in terms of actually getting these weapons to the Taiwanese?
I think one of the important things that has happened in recent years is getting the Taiwanese to focus on purchasing the kinds of weapons that would be necessary to defend themselves against a Chinese amphibious invasion. And the Taiwanese legislature has just finally reached an agreement to fund the purchase of these weapons. So I think we should go forward with it. It is, in our own way, our counter to President Xi's strong statement. Yes, you have your position, we have ours.
Secretary Rubio did tell another network, though, that his belief is that China's preference is to have Taiwan willingly join the People's Republic. Do you expect that to be the more likely scenario, that there is sort of a slow strangulation of Taiwanese democracy by the Communist Party?
I think the chances of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan are pretty low, particularly over the next several years. And partly because Xi has other options open to him that involve far less risk. So they have surrounded Taiwan with ships, and in the air, they have shown their ability to close off maritime and air access to the island. They could create a blockade or a quarantine around Taiwan anytime they wanted, what the Taiwanese call an Anaconda strategy, and it would strangle Taiwan over time. I don't think they want to go in and attack Taiwan. They don't want to destroy the very chip factories they want to take over. So, and then there's cyber, there are all kinds of pressures. There isn't one single Chinese general or admiral today that has one day of combat experience. The last time these guys fought was 1979, and the North Vietnamese, the Vietnamese gave them a bloody nose. He's fired, she has fired all these generals. He's there now, no generals left on the Central Military Commission that kind of oversees the whole thing.
Let me ask you about what's happening in the Middle East. The last time we spoke, last spring, we were just weeks away from that US-Israeli strike on the three nuclear sites in Iran. You said at that time, it was May, when you were Defense Secretary, you were concerned that a strike on the nuclear program would just buy time, a year or two, but it would not solve the problem. Do you still believe that?
I think the only way that we are likely to get the enriched uranium out of Iran and bring about an end to their nuclear aspirations is through a negotiation. Is it possible for the President of the United States to walk away and leave this for the Israelis to settle? No, I don't think he can walk away, and no, I don't think the Israelis can settle it. I don't think, as powerful as they are, they don't have the kind of power the United States has. And I think the president seems to have been very consistent and very clear that under no circumstances can Iran ever have a nuclear bomb. Well, the only way you get to that objective is resolving this issue of the enriched uranium and any future plans for enrichment. I mean, I think I don't think that the nuclear program in Iran poses an imminent threat. After all, we bombed it twice. But it is a big enough problem that it was clearly not going to be settled in four to six weeks, which was the time stamp that the American people were told to expect in terms of the duration of conflict. I think that there were some unrealistic expectations.
Have you heard a clearly articulated sort of center of gravity, this operation, and end goal, a strategy?
Well, I think some of the justifications have changed over time, but one thing, I think there have been a few things that have been consistent from the very beginning. One is to eliminate Iran's ability to have a nuclear weapon. Another is to eliminate their military capabilities to attack their neighbors. Third is to eliminate the capability to support their surrogates, the Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, to sink their navy. I think those are all, those were have all been articulated as objectives of this operation, and although the nuclear program has been dramatically damaged and set back a long time, I think those other things, a lot has been accomplished.
You were CIA director, you were a Defense Secretary. How do you assess Secretary Hagel's performance?
I'm not into talking about my successors, but I will say I want to point to something positive that I think is going on. It goes back to something we were talking about earlier. I think the leadership in the Pentagon, and especially the Deputy Secretary and the Under Secretary involved in acquisition, are doing some very important and overdue things in terms of shaking up the bureaucracy in the Pentagon. But he's got this focus on the warrior ethos. I'm sure you've heard a lot of what he has announced. He summoned the generals to DC, told them he's tired of seeing fat troops and fat generals. He wants to weigh them twice a year. He ordered a ruthless review of the Judge Advocate Court, the military lawyers. He fired most of the inspectors general, saying he planned to overhaul the weaponized internal Pentagon watchdog.
When you're talking about the things you like, would you put any of these things on that list?
No, but I will say this. I mean, I have fired a fair number of generals and senior people myself. The way I handled it was a little differently in the respect that I felt that I needed to go in front of the press and explain why I had taken these actions. Well, there's not a full Pentagon press corps even present at the Pentagon these days for a news conference like that without getting special permission to be on the premises right now. He's fired 16 military officials at least, including the Navy Secretary, the Army Chief of Staff, General Randy during the Iran war. He pushed out the Admiral at the helm of Southcom, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, the Head of Defense Intelligence. Do you see those things as necessary disruption that ultimately will have a positive impact, or does it concern you?
Well, it concerns me, but I also have to acknowledge that I don't know the rationale for those changes. I don't know why those changes were made, and there may be perfectly justifiable reasons, but I just don't know what they are.
And you think that that should be explained to the public and to the Congress?
I think people, when you have a lot of changes like that, yeah, I think there is an obligation to explain, at a minimum to the Congress, the rationale.
The systems don't seem to be operating that way right now.
No.
Our full interview with Secretary Gates is available on our website, YouTube channel, and our podcast. We'll be right back.