Robert Gates: “I believe deeply that it helped avoid miscalculations and misunderstandings.”

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.

I'm kind of pessimistic for the near term.

we always discover . . . that we [go] too far in cutting

Without proper and predictable funding, no amount of reform or clever reorganization will provide America with a military capable of accomplishing the missions it's assigned to.