Duty - Memoirs of a Secretary at War

Zusatztext 40746248 Informationen zum Autor Robert M. Gates served as secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He also served as an officer in the United States Air Force and worked for the Central Intelligence Agency before being appointed director of the agency by President George H. W. Bush. He was a member of the National Security Council staff in four administrations and served eight presidents of both political parties. Additionally, Gates has a continuing distinguished record in the private sector and in academia, including currently serving as chancellor of the College of William and Mary. He holds a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University. Klappentext After serving six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, Robert M. Gates believed that he had left Washington politics behind for good-but when he received the call from the White House in 2006 to help a nation mired in two wars, he answered what he felt was the call of duty. Forthright and unsparing, Duty is Gates's behind-the-scenes account of his nearly five years as a Secretary of Defense at war: the battles with Congress, the two presidents he served, the military itself, and the vast Pentagon bureaucracy; his efforts to help George W. Bush turn the tide in Iraq; his role as a guiding (and often dissenting) voice for Barack Obama; and, most importantly, his ardent devotion to and love for American soldiers. Offering unvarnished appraisals of our political leaders, including Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, Duty tells a powerful and deeply personal story, giving us an unprecedented look at two administrations and the wars that have defined them. Author’s Note   This is a book about my more than four and a half years at war. It is, of course, principally about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where initial victories in both countries were squandered by mistakes, shortsighted- ness, and conflict in the field as well as in Washington, leading to long, brutal campaigns to avert strategic defeat. It is about the war against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, those responsible for our national tragedy on September 11, 2001. But this book is also about my political war with Congress every day I was in office and the dramatic contrast between my public respect, bipartisanship, and calm, and my private frustration, disgust, and anger. There were also political wars with the White House, often with the White House staff, occasionally with the presidents themselves—more with President Obama than with President Bush. And finally, there was my bureaucratic war with the Department of Defense and the military services, aimed at transforming a department organized to plan for war into one that could wage war, changing the military forces we had into the military forces we needed to succeed.   George W. Bush and Barack Obama were, respectively, the seventh and eighth presidents I worked for. I knew neither man when I began working for them, and they did not know me. To my astonishment (and consternation), I became the only secretary of defense in history to be asked to remain in the position by a newly elected president, let alone one of a different party. I came to the job in mid-December 2006 with the sole purpose of doing what I could to salvage the mission in Iraq from disaster. I had no idea how to do it, nor any idea of the sweeping changes I would need to make at the Pentagon to get it done. And I had no idea how dramatically and how far my mission over time would expand beyond Iraq.   As I look back, there is a parallel theme to my four and a half years at war: love. By that I mean the love—there is no other word for it—I came to feel for the troops, and the overwhelming sense of personal responsibility I developed for them. So much so that it would shape some of my most significant decisions and positions. Toward the end of my time in office, I could ba...

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A 2014 New York Times Notable Book

Probably one of the best Washington memoirs ever...Historians and policy wonks will bask in the revelations Gates provides on major decisions from late 2006 to 2011, the span of his time at the Pentagon Gates is doing far more than just scoring points in this revealing volume. The key to reading it is understanding that he was profoundly affected by his role in sending American soldiers overseas to fight and be killed or maimed.
Thomas E. Ricks, The New York Times Book Review
 
Touching, heartfelt...fascinating...Gates takes the reader inside the war-room deliberations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and delivers unsentimental assessments of each man s temperament, intellect and management style...No civilian in Washington was closer to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than Gates. As Washington and the rest of the country were growing bored with the grinding conflicts, he seemed to feel their burden more acutely.
Greg Jaffe, The Washington Post
 
Forthright, impassioned highly revealing about decision making in both the Obama and Bush White Houses [Gates ] writing is informed not only by a keen sense of historical context, but also by a longtime Washington veteran s understanding of how the levers of government work or fail to work. Unlike many careful Washington memoirists, Gates speaks his mind on a host of issues [he] gives us his shrewd take on a range of foreign policy matters, an understanding of his mission to reform the incoherent spending and procurement policies of the Pentagon, and a tactile sense of what it was like to be defense secretary during two wars.  
Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
 
A refreshingly honest memoir and a moving one.
Jack Keane, The Wall Street Journal

A compelling memoir and a serious history A fascinating, briskly honest account [of a] journey through the cutthroat corridors of Washington and world politics, with shrewd, sometimes eye-popping observations along the way about the nature of war and the limits of power. Gates was a truly historic secretary of defense precisely because he did get so much done His descriptions of how he accomplished these feats the mix of cooptation and coercion that he employed should be read by every future defense secretary, and executives of all stripes, as a guide for how to command and overhaul a large institution.
Fred Kaplan, Slate
 
A breathtakingly comprehensive and ultimately unsparing examination of the modern ways of making politics, policy, and war Students of the nation s two early twenty-first century wars will find the comprehensive account of Pentagon and White House deliberations riveting. General readers will be drawn to [Gates ] meditations on power and on life at the center of great political decisions His vision is clear and his tale is sad. Gates takes Duty as his title, but the account of his service also brings to mind the other two thirds of the West Point motto: honor and country.
David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe
 
Duty is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of what makes Washington tick.
Edward Luce, Financial Times
 
Gates has offered an informed and earnest perspective, one that Americans ought to hear, reflect on and debate.
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic

Engaging and candid .Young people who want to understand and live up to the highest ideals of American statesmanship would do well to read this book carefully; Gates has much to teach about the practical idealism that represents the best kind of American leadership.
Foreign Affairs

Compelling trenchant.
Newsday

This is a serious, thoughtful, illuminating, and valuable insider account of the final years of the George W. Bush administration and early years of the Obama presidency .Gates holds little back in this revealing memoir.
Choice

If you read only one book by a Washington insider this year, make it this one. It should be savored by anyone who wishes to know more about the realities of decision-making in today s federal government.
Library Journal

The full story that emerges from this detailed and often deeply personal account is of a man fed up with the dysfunction of the nation s capital.
The American Conservative

Product details

• Authors: Robert M Gates, Robert M. Gates
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.05.2015
• EAN: 9780307949639
• ISBN: 978-0-307-94963-9
• No. of pages: 618
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 232 mm x 33 mm
• Series: VINTAGE BOOKS
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education