i have said all along that we can't afford to have someone who doesn't know where the bathrooms in the pentagon are managing the withdrawal from iraq, and i continue to believe it, so picking gates makes sense on those grounds alone, but kaplan also makes sense here.

One of (Bill) Clinton's biggest mistakes early on was alienating the Pentagon with his attempt to allow gays to serve openly in the military. Obama is doing the opposite by retaining Gates.

If Obama can actually clean up the huge pork barrel that's shaped like a pentagon by using Gates' skill and experience it will be an historic occasion.

Obama impresses more and more.

AND--any criticisms of Gates' cuts can be blunted by responding that he was Bush's choice to head DOD.

One interesting tidbit about Gates: He served on the boards of VoteHere and SAIC, two companies that makes voting machines and was part of the greater "Diebold scandal." He was also on the board of a Oil company (Parker Drilling) and a coal mining company (NAACO). While serving on boards is generally little more than an honorarium, it certainly suggests close ties to Republican interests - more so than merely being appointed to CID by Bush Sr.

Yeah, the importance of utilizing a military man to re-form the military cannot be overemphasized. Sure, the U.S. will still be protecting its commercial and resource interests (in other words, we're still imperialists) but at least we might see more subtlety and nuance, and less out-of-control-four-year-old destruction. Maturity and competence - could this be the start of something big?

Even if Obama wanted to make significant changes counter to Gates agenda, it would still make sense to keep him on for a period of time. This is one area where a slow transition reduces our security vulnerabilities. A lot of mistakes are made early on in a new administration, simply because the new team doesn't know the game. Leaving Gates on the job for a year or two should contribute to the stability of the transition period.

Foolish. We are taking ourselves out of position to confront Russia and China, if and when it becomes necessary.

I have an honest question for the Poli Sci nerds: how much autonomy do Cabinet members actually have?

I gather that under Bush political appointees pretty much acted like mini-regents, doing whatever they wanted towards whatever ends they desired. But is this the normal way things work?

I'm more familiar with the machinations of my native Canadian government - and here, the various Ministries are very much ruled from the Office of the Prime Minister - which sets the agenda (often down to the minutest detail if it's an important Ministry) for the upcoming term. Quite literally EVERYTHING flows from the top - and the Clerk of the Prime Minister's Office is generally considered the most powerful man in Ottawa...with good reason.

I get the impression that Obama wants to run things more in the manner I described than how it appeared to be under Bush. And if that's the case, then whom he nominates for the various positions is somewhat besides the point (like it is here, nobody really cares about who is the Minister of what - except for Finance and Foreign Affairs..the former for obvious reasons, and the latter because that's where Prime Minister's usually send the biggest threats to their leadership to rot ;)

Am I at all correct in my reading??

The first two quoted paragraphs of Kaplan's piece dont really impress me. Couldnt the same things have been said about Rumsfeld? Yet his ideas about attacking with a lighter force ended up being horribly wrong.

Anybody who thinks that Gates or Obama can reform the Pentagon in a major way must remember one critical factor: DoD procurement programs are looked upon as retirement vehicles for the officers making decisions on those programs. Until officers managing defense projects are forbidden from being employed by the same defense contractors working on those projects, we will never see any change in the way DoD carries out its mission. Nothing gets fixed or killed because it means the defense contractor will be held accountable for the program they are ostensibly carrying out for the nation and they will lose money doing so. Too many of our military leaders have great physical courage but are cowards when it comes to moral or ethical courage, and the mess at the Pentagon demonstrates it repeatedly.

If they can put a stake through the heart of the silly and expensive 'national missile defense' program, then I'll be impressed.

I gather that under Bush political appointees pretty much acted like mini-regents neilt

I'm not sure how you draw that conclusion. The US Attorney scandal suggested that decisions were being made out of the White House (Rove and Meirs), while Gonzales was a stooge at best. Rumsfeld ran the war strategy, but there was a lot of conflict with State and National Security Counsel. The visibility of conflicts between those departments, however, was mostly because Bush was a weak personality. For the most part, I think there was a cabal of like-minded people (mostly Cheney & Rove) who coordinated things, but it was top down.

among the numerous problems with "reforming the pentagon" is that the dod is the biggest welfare program even seen by man....you'd have to get them to dump all the defense money wasted on procurment programs into green technology to begin to make a dent. even if you sold it as a "national security" program, i doubt it would happen...

personally i'd love to see a bunch of the money they waste diverted to a new "department of Peace....," but that's just me...

I still get the feeling that one rationalization after another about Gates is being proposed until something sticks. I agree with an earlier poster that Rumsfeld pushed for the realignment of the military to the needs of today. If Gates was so gung ho he could have pushed for change by now. Who in the Bush administration would have stopped him? The real problem is with procurement and the billions of dollars we spend on weapons systems and everything military. There is no logic or review of the expenditures. For example, we are still perfectly happy sending troops into battle with aging body armor instead of the latest and greatest. The money has been there since day one to buy the best but the wrong manufacturer was making it. Too many Pentagon generals and admirals pledge their allegiance to large corporations and not the best interests of the US. I do not see keeping Gates as a step toward changing that culture. Keep flinging; maybe something else will stick.

If Gates is to achieve anything in 2009, it has to be known in advance that his is not just a temporary appointment. With a short-term appointment, as announced, Gates' primary job will be to manage the American withdrawal from Iraq.

The reason we have special forces, intelligence, and counter-insurgency is for the small war. None of this directly threatens the USA.

However, if you believe you don't need the capability still to fight a major war on the continents, probably Western Europe, you are ignoring the safety factors you need for US security.

The US needs a Navy, Air Force and Army that can fight both what we would still call a "conventional" war, but also a biological and nuclear major campaign. Beyond that both narrow and broader specialist wars such as Afghanistan, or like the UK Malaysian communist insurgency.

It is no longer a simple world -- if it ever was. Red against Blue and paying mercenaries to fight for us is mostly gone. Lately the US has placed its foot on the throat of enemies. Not always effectively.

We need to be more analytical, efficient, effective.

Since the end of WWII, the US has had a policy which can be summarised thusly: a good defense requires a strong offense. Which essentially underwrites permanent war as a state doctrine, and that has been the upshot of US foreign policy for 60yrs. Now, whether because of economic weakness, or perhaps a real sea-change in the NSC-68 mindset, a bloated Pentagon with its 3-service lobbying head is heading for perhaps drastic cuts, and maybe Obama really has decided that real US "defense" interests can be served best by multi-national agreements within a multipolar world, who knows? But, let it be said that militarisation of foreign policy is a pernicious virus which has clearly captured today's "defense intellectuals", and that the "small wars" within "the long war" mentality will continue to infiltrate policy for some time to come, reformist intentions to the contrary. "National defense" always postulates an "enemy", tand there are no shortages of those when placed within a "threat environment".