Full Transcript - US Department of Defense. Highlights include comments on leadership and credibility, Iran; Iraq, Afghanistan and the Long War; applying Fox Conner's three axioms to the security challenges of the 21st century -- 1. Never fight unless you have to, 2. Never fight alone and 3. Never fight for long.
An AFPS News Excerpt:
Success on today's and tomorrow's battlefields requires military leaders guided by conscience who refuse to be "yes men," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a speech last night to future Army officers at the U.S. Military Academy.
Gates told the cadets at West Point, N.Y., that he considers principled dissent a sign of a healthy organization, but he also encouraged loyalty among the dissenters.
The Army will need leaders of "uncommon agility, resourcefulness and imagination, leaders —and able to think and act creatively and decisively in a different kind of world and a different kind of conflict than we have prepared for over the last six decades," Gates said.
But one factor remains constant, Gates continued. "We will still need men and women in uniform to call things as they see them and tell their subordinates and superiors alike what they need to hear, not what they want to hear." ...
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