The NY Times has an article today on our new Secretary of Defense. According to the article, he’s a hawk:
But a hawk may not be all he is. His favorite quotation from history, he told reporters traveling with him this week for meetings with allies and commanders in Europe and the Middle East, is from Frederick the Great, the 18th century Prussian monarch and gifted musician: “Negotiations without arms are like music books without instruments.”
Or, put another way, it takes military power to create the leverage necessary to make negotiations fruitful.
Will we be seeing another application of Reagan’s “peace through strength doctrine”–more muscular use of our military followed by diplomacy? The article also points to signs that Gates differs with Rumsfeld on troop levels and has been a supporter of sending more troops to Iraq. That’s one welcome change, in my view.
