Former Secretary of Defense Gates weighs in on foreign policy and national security issues in “60 Minutes” interview

Former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates weighed in on recent foreign policy and national security issues in an interview that aired on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Oct. 17, at times offering pointed criticisms of the current and former presidents, the military and himself, and outlining what he considers a key strategic military threat to the country.

Gates, 78, joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1966, and spent nearly 50 years at the highest echelons of either the U.S. intelligence or defense establishments. He counseled eight U.S. presidents (four of each political party).

The Kansas native was second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and an intelligence officer at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary and master’s in history from Indiana University, he earned a doctorate in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University.

Gates’s most recent role in government was as secretary of the Department of Defense (DOD), where he served from December 2006 to July 2011. At his retirement ceremony, President Barack Obama presented Gates with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Blame for Afghanistan exit shared

Gates began the 13:17-minute interview criticizing the end of the war in Afghanistan, one of two major conflicts in the Middle East he oversaw during his tenure at the Pentagon. (The other being the Iraq War, which Obama ended in 2011 after eight years.)

As ordered by President Joe Biden in April, U.S. military and diplomatic personnel exited Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021. This directive carried out an accord negotiated in February 2020 by the administration of President Donald Trump. Gates blamed both presidents, and military leaders, for catastrophic mistakes in the withdrawal from the country and in the execution of the 20-year conflict, America’s longest war.

Trump, Gates said, failed to plan to evacuate Afghan allies who had fought alongside the United States against the Taliban. Biden, Gates said, should have acted more quickly after announcing in April that he was setting a date to end the war.

“Once President Biden reaffirmed that there was going to be a firm deadline date, that’s the point at which I think they should have begun bringing these people out,” Gates said.

Both Biden and Trump share responsibility? Cooper asked Gates. “Absolutely,” he replied.

Various congressional committees are examining the events leading up to Aug. 30, including the suicide attack on Aug. 26 at Hamid Karzai International Airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and wounded 22 others and, according to DOD, killed or wounded another 100 Afghan evacuees. The scrutiny includes how the U.S. military decided to launch a retaliatory airstrike in Kabul that, DOD has admitted, resulted in the deaths of 10 civilians unconnected to the attack, including up to seven children.

Gates advocated for military surge into Afghanistan; admits mistakes

Gates said he’s not entirely blameless for the prosecution of the war, even though he’s quick to say it began before he arrived at the Pentagon.

Still, as Obama’s defense chief, Gates strongly advocated for the surge of military forces into Afghanistan, which peaked at 130,000 service members in 2010-2011, of which 100,000 were U.S. servicemen and servicewomen, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report dated Sept. 17, 2021.

Gates told Jim Lehrer of the “PBS Newshour” on June 23, 2011, that the intention of the surge was to “beat back” the Taliban and end combat operations in 2014:

“So, the whole idea of this strategy from the very beginning was for us to come in heavy with the surge, beat back the Taliban momentum — and particularly in the south and southwest, Helmand, Kandahar, in that area — get more aggressive in taking on the infiltration routes coming across from Pakistan in the east of Afghanistan and increasingly partner with the Afghan security forces, the Afghan army.”

Gates added in that PBS interview: “We also have the Afghan local police that are developing and are potentially a game changer because they’re locals to the villages.”

As 2014 came and went among sporadic successes, the conflict dragged on, and U.S. and coalition force levels were reduced and repositioned, according to the CRS report. Following the negotiated withdrawal in February 2020, various U.S. agencies assessed that year and in 2021 that the Taliban held the battlefield advantage over the Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces, a situation downplayed by the Afghan government, according to CRS.

Gates conceded in the “60 Minutes” interview that the rapid rout of Afghan security and military forces in the days leading up the United States’ exit was part of a series of military misjudgments about what Afghan and U.S. forces could realistically accomplish.

“I think that we created an Afghan military in our own image,” Gates said. “And one that required a lot more sophisticated logistics and maintenance and support than say the Taliban (required).”

He continued: “Instead of being light and tactical and basically self-resourced as the Taliban were, we created a logistics-heavy, sophisticated-equipment-heavy military. And when you pulled that rug out from under them, and you add on top of that the corruption of the senior military leaders and so on, it’s not a surprise to me that the Afghan Army collapsed.”

Praise for confronting strategic threats

Despite taking Biden to task for Afghanistan and for other foreign policy decisions over the years, Gates lauded the administration for reaching a nuclear submarine deal with the United Kingdom and Australia, calling it a “great strategic move.”

“It sends a powerful message all around the world,” Gates said, “including to China, that the United States still has a lot of arrows in the quiver” and that “we will remain a force to be reckoned with within the western Pacific.”

Gates said the deal is important for two reasons: it boosts America’s ability to deter threats in the region and strengthens Taiwan’s defenses against an increasingly assertive China.

In recent weeks, Chinese warplanes have made incursions into Taiwan’s airspace, prompting global worry that the self-governed, democratic island is at risk of being invaded. In response to these threats, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Oct. 14 that “the U.S. commitment to Taiwan is rock solid.” (The official U.S. position, however, is that Taiwan is part of China.)

This comes against the backdrop of China’s suppression of the democracy movement in Hong Kong and amid human rights reports that China is ethnically cleansing its Muslim-majority Uyghur population in the northwest. And, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, China in recent years has boosted spending on its military as a share of overall national government spending.

Gates also praised former President Trump’s handling of China, specifically in being early to raise awareness among Americans and the business community that a wealthier China is not a freer one.

However, Gates said, when Trump perpetuates what’s known as the “big lie” that Biden did not win the last election, he emboldens global adversaries that want to see the United States as failing or lacking in moral authority.

“It seems to me that it underscores the theme that China is sounding around the world that the United States’ political system doesn’t work and that the United States is a declining power,” Gates said.

Learn more

Watch or read the 2021 Gates interview with “60 Minutes”: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-gates-60-minutes-2021-10-17.

Watch or read the 2011 Gates interview with the “PBS Newshour”: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/gates-i-was-strong-advocate-for-surge-to-end-in-summer-2012#transcript.

Read the CRS report, U.S. Military Withdrawal and Taliban
Takeover in Afghanistan: Frequently Asked Questions, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46879.