A more Dangerous World

Some of Barack Obama's advisers have talked publicly of keeping on Robert Gates as secretary of defense in a Democratic administration.

Gates, who has been widely praised for his pragmatic stewardship of the Pentagon, says firmly he wants to go home to Washington state. But he agreed to talk to NEWSWEEK's John Barry about the national-security challenges he sees ahead. Excerpts:

Barry: So, what awaits the next president?

Gates: I entered the CIA 42 years ago, and I think that the world is as complex and in a real way more dangerous than at any time since then.

More dangerous than the cold war?

In the cold war, you had the cosmic risk of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. But the truth is that, other than the Cuban missile crisis and maybe one or two other occasions that threat was really theoretical. The missiles were real, but both powers had learned to deal with each other. We had rules of the road even between the KGB and CIA. And so there was a fair amount of predictability; we kind of observed red lines.

And now there are no red lines?

Look around. Iran. North Korea. A Russia that people have a hard time figuring out what to make of. The Chinese are not so much a security challenge, but they clearly have some very significant military modernization programs underway that are worrisome. North Korea: what's going to happen now? The entirety of Central Asia, where you have pressures on them from Russia to toe the line, and their wanting to maintain some sense of independence — but how much? Again, nobody knows where that line is … The problems that Pakistan faces. So you've got all of these. You've got the whole Israeli-Palestinian-Syrian challenge. In our own hemisphere, Venezuela. And then, of course, there is Al Qaeda and a variety of violent extremists that are still very much out there. That's a pretty long list of challenges that the new guys need to be prepared to deal with from day one.

But a more dangerous world?

The reason I said it was a more dangerous world ... is that the consequences of conflict, or an attack, are not nearly as cataclysmic as had there been a conflict with the Soviet Union. But the risks of one are far greater.

And, of course, the next president will inherit two wars …

We are engaged in two very difficult wars. One of them, [Iraq], seems on the way toward a positive outcome — particularly given where we were. But the other is going to be a slog, and it's more complicated because we have many more nations involved — not just on the military side, on the civilian side, too. So … managing that is much more difficult in Afghanistan.

You took over from Donald Rumsfeld …

One of the things that annoys me is that everyone is always trying to contrast everything I do with everything Secretary Rumsfeld did. But the transformation that he started has totally changed the American military, and, I believe, for the better.

I was going to ask what you found that surprised you?

If there's one big surprise I've had since taking this job, I haven't found a single country that didn't want a stronger, better relationship with the United States and that did not think the U.S. was still the key player. I've probably traveled to 50 countries now. Not one—Indonesia, India, China, Russia, the Middle East. Places where I kind of expected to get beat up, places where, when I traveled when I was DCI [director of Central Intelligence], in some ways there was a more negative attitude toward the United States then than now. For all of the criticisms, all of the mistakes that we've made, we're just kind of there. To a considerable extent we are still the only multidimensional superpower—political, military, economic, cultural. I mean, American culture? Even those who hate us the most wear American college sweatshirts and want to go to American colleges and universities.

So you don't see the damage to America's prestige in the world from Abu Ghraib, Guant á namo and so on as permanent?

One of great strengths of America is that, maybe more than any other country, we have the ability to correct course when we go too far in one direction.

Are we locked on a collision course with Iran?

I have not by any means given up on the possibility that the Iranians can be pressured into arrangements that salve their national pride but provide a verifiable way of demonstrating that they don't have a nuclear-weapons capability and are not building one. I mean, that's got to be the objective. Whether it's an enrichment bank in Russia that they rent [uranium] from—whatever. I think the international community, including the United States—if Iran were willing to forswear nuclear weapons—would probably be pretty forthcoming in trying to figure out an arrangement that would let them do what they say they want to do, which is to have a civil nuclear program.

And if they do insist on pursuing a nuclear-weapons program?

One of the many concerns about Iran getting nuclear weapons or having a nuclear-weapons capability is that some of their neighbors may decide they just can't stand it. I think that North Korea and Iran are particular problems—beyond the immediate military danger their having nuclear weapons may pose—in the incentive they provide for others to go ahead and develop their own nuclear weapons. And the credibility of our deterrent is really going to be put to the test, it seems to me, if we can't do something about both of those programs.



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