(video courtesy of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs)
When I heard that Robert Gates was in town and was going to give a talk
on leadership, I jumped at the opportunity. The most I knew about him, at the
time that I signed up for this, is that he was George W. Bush’s Secretary of
Defense for a spell. What I found out during the talk was that he has worked
for a number of different administrations.
The responsible thing to do here is to elaborate on that, but this info
is Wikipedia-able. Being that I’m finally getting around to a post about something that
happened over a month ago, I am going to forgo this step. Dr. Gates has a 40-year
history—current President of the Boy Scouts of America, ex-CIA, a bunch of other
stuff. It turns out that the main draw for his latest book (and this talk by
extension) was that he had been at the head of a diverse array of
organizations. Therefore he is quite qualified to convey some wisdom on
leardership that an be used universally.
But an aside on the
ex-CIA tip:
When asked about the
general state of affairs abroad, Gates cracked this joke about how people in
the intelligence community are naturally pessimistic. “If [an intelligence
officer] stops to smell the roses, he’s looking around for the coffin.” I
thought that was really funny! I
probably laughed the loudest out of the hundreds and hundreds of people in that
Fairmont Hotel banquet hall. Good thing I sat in the back. And that’s when it
dawned on me that I pretty much have the same sense of humor as a super
old-school Texan man.
My Initial
Impressions
Clearly, I had all the wrong ones. I knew he was going to talk about leadership, but I didn’t really
look into it much. Sure I maybe found out through osmosis that he was on a book
tour, about his book on leadership. But I, being familiar only with his work
with the most recent Republican administration, assumed it was going to be more
of Gates on some anti-Obama platform—about how we are not leading-as-a-country
anymore (you know, the usual conservative gripes) and he was going to outline
that fact in equally cliché ways. But once they started with his intro, I was
like “oh, they literally meant how to
be a leader on the flier”…like a keynote speech you may give as a university
president (possibly to your campus’s RA’s). Then I think to myself “well
shit…are we going to talk policy at all?” I thought I was cozying up to
Secretary Gates pontificating on what’s wrong with our foreign policy/defense
plan. Once that bubble burst for me, I was even more glad I didn’t cave and put
up the nine dollars (in cash only)
for a beer ticket. That would have meant I was making myself comfy for
something entirely other than what I
signed up for. That being said, he did take time to admonish the general gridlock
in Washington. That indicated to me that it’s officially the hot thing to do on
both sides of the aisle. That occurred about five minutes into his speech. It
is at that time that it really sunk in for me, thinking to myself “so A
Passion for Leadership: Lessons on Change and Reform from Fifty Years of Public
Service is basically meant as a glorified organizational psychology book?”
As the kids might say, I got got.
So the one benefit of
procrastinating on this for so long is that I earned some perspective. Instead
of just regurgitating on what happened (there’s the video on the internet for
that), I’m going to give you my inferred takeaways on what Robert Gates thinks
about current things.
Like many adults of
his age and background, he’s disenchanted with the millennial generation.
In response to someone’s question about the decline in the
number of public servants under age 35, Gates got applause for his suggestion
for there to be mandatory national service program for people to join once a person
turns 18 (sounds kind of big government-ish to me, but that’s also just me
being a troll). But how is there
such disappointment in this age group’s lack of commitment to public service? We’re
crushed by debt, man! Here’s all I have to say:
He’s really into thinking that “young people” should
consider serving their fellow Americans. Maybe if we weren’t all so broke, we
could consider it. Take Donald Trump, for instance. Trump is a baffling
individual—and not even for the obvious reasons. He’s a billionaire. Why does
he want to take on the stress of leading the world’s most powerful country to
the tune of a measly $400k a year? Adults these days…I tell ya.
Robert is not really
fuckin’ with that Iranian deal.
I infer this, at least in part, by a little quip he made
about the weather out in D.C. Mind you, this event took place right after that
huge snowstorm on the east coast. Gates joked “everything in Washington is frozen
except Iranian assets!” And I thought it was funny. As. Fuck. I laughed pretty
loud, while everyone else just sort of tee-heed (strike two for my old-timey
sense of humor). But that aside, I think the removal of US sanctions is really
sticking out in Dr. Gates’s mind at the moment—to say the least. What compounds
this is that at the wrap-up of Q&A, someone asked about what counties
should be major players in the (so-called) US-led coalition against ISIS. To
this question, Gates responded:
·
“A
Shia-led, Iranian backed government in Baghdad, welcoming the forces of sunni
countries to help sunnis is not gonna happen.”
·
So in light of that type of response, I feel the
Iranian deal really irks him. But it is at this point that I differ with the
former Secretary.
A Tehran-backed Shiite militia seems farfetched at the
moment, but we’re getting warmer and warmer with Tehran every day—so much so,
one could say, that these warming relations between Washington and Tehran have
pushed Saudi anxieties to the tipping point (see the diplomatic fallout after
the execution of Sheik Nimr-al-Nimr).
One could (and people do) make the argument that the al Nimr
situation is not borne of sectarian animosity, so much as rock-bottom oil
prices and the waning of Saudi Arabia’s economic utility (as far as the US is
concerned). That being said, it is not hard to fathom a Tehran, delighted with
new Western outlets for consumerism, become willing to take the on-the-ground
role of keeping Iraq calm. Ain’t no tellin’. Aint noooo telling.
NO TELLING!
So that’s my spiel for now. My hope is that these become
more polished, and put out more promptly and often. From my laptop, this has been amateur reporter on this event, Angela
Twerkel.
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