Robert Gates: “I think they're very impressed with the quality of the Afghan National Army, and believe that it's making good progress.”

I think part of the problem is that at the end of the Cold War, we were affected by triumphalism or hubris, whatever you want to call it.

He wants Ukraine, basically, to be a client state of Russia.

He's going to insist on occupying all four of the eastern provinces of the Donbas.

I soon learned that the only way I could get significant new or additional equipment to commanders in the field in weeks or months, not years, was to take control of the problem myself through special task forces and ad hoc processes.