The Dean Acheson Lecture
With the Honorable Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense
October 15, 2008 | Washington, D.C.
Related Speeches by Secretary Gates
Secretary Gates has established a speaking record on the need to properly train and equip military and civilian capacities dealing with conflict prevention and resolution, as well as post-conflict stabilization. The purpose of the Acheson Lecture is to call attention to these and other topics that further the mission of the Institute of Peace.
Gates has emphasized the importance of strengthening civil-military ties in several recent speeches. In the U.S. Global Leadership speech given by Gates on July 15, 2008, he emphasized these points: "In all, these non-military efforts – these tools of persuasion and inspiration – were indispensable to the outcome of the defining ideological struggle of the 20th Century. I believe that they are just as indispensable in the 21st Century – and maybe more so." He stressed the need for an integrated national defense strategy and increased funding for the State Department and USAID. He also noted that the President’s budget request for the coming year included 1,100 new Foreign Service Officers and the Civilian Response Corps.
In a November 2007 lecture at Kansas State University, Gates cited several areas in which USIP currently works— economic development, promoting reconciliation, good governance, and training indigenous police and military forces—in making the case for strengthening instruments of "soft" power and better integrating them with "hard" power.
Gated echoed these themes in two April 2008 speeches. At the Air War College, he said that the Air Force will be increasingly called upon "to conduct civil-military or humanitarian operations with interagency and non-governmental partners." At the UK Royal College of Defence Studies, Gates said that for NATO and the U.S. to shift successfully from a Cold War posture to meet present threats, they must establish deployable civilian assistance that will "mesh effectively with the civilian effort."
