Not Mincing Words

On his way out the door, Robert Gates gives the military some refreshingly frank advice.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, March 4, 2011, at 6:14 PM ET

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And so it seems, Robert Gates really will be leaving the Pentagon soon.

He's been going around to the military academies—West Point last week, the Air Force Academy today, Annapolis sometime soon—bidding farewell to the cadets, pointedly noting at the start of each speech that it will be his "final" address to them as secretary of defense. But Gates is not indulging in valedictory bromides. He's using the occasions to lay out his vision of what each branch—and each future officer—of the U.S. armed forces must do, and not do, to meet the threats of the 21^st century.

He's given bits and pieces of these speeches before: The Army needs to shift from a garrison peacetime force that's preparing for a possible head-on armored clash against a foe of comparable strength to a mobile force that's fighting actual "asymmetric" wars against rogue states and insurgents. The Air Force needs to pull back from its traditional obsession with high-tech air-to-air combat and focus more on joint operations—surveillance, precise air strikes, cargo transport, and rapid rescue—that help the troops on the ground. The Navy needs to focus less on aircraft carriers and more on vessels that can maneuver in coastal waters.