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| Secretary Robert Gates |
Secretary Robert Gates is a Republican, and one of the best examples of the point of a classic textbook on government called The Irony of Democracy by Thomas R. Dye and L. Harmon Ziglar.
In The Irony of Democracy the U.S Government is ran by elites, for whom class values, power, and economics, all overshadow party affiliation.
In the case of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served in the same role with President George W. Bush, he was an early supporter of President Obama's Afghanistan-oriented war strategy.
Keeping Gates between Presidents was borne of Obama's desire to calm the military that the new President wasn't going to come in and make whole sale changes.
Senator Obama was never a critic of the military as a whole, but of certain practices within it. Those liberals who expected Obama to dramatically reduce defense spending and stop all wars don't understand Washington's elite culture.
The Military Industrial Complex, the interplay of technology, weapons, jobs, politics, warfare, and anti-terrorist efforts after 9-11 have more to do with the maintenance of essentially the same defense policy between Presidents Obama and Bush.
The only factor that can significantly change that as of this writing is the poor performance of the economy and the need to cut defense spending because of it.
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