Many analysts have agreed that Leon Panetta will have a difficult time succeeding Robert Gates as secretary of defense, given what many view as Gates’s accomplishments during his four and a half years at the helm. While Gates has indeed accomplished some things at the Pentagon, the real problem for Panetta will be that Gates has been on all sides of most issues faced by the Department of Defense, something that very few of Gates’s supporters have noted. Let me give but a few examples.
The above excerpt was originally published in The National Interest.
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