With the inauguration of President Barack Obama and the shuffling of advisers it brings, one office won’t be receiving new leadership. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will remain in that position under the new administration.When Gates was installed as Defense secretary after the departure of Donald Rumsfeld, he was heralded as a moderating force within the administration. Where Rumsfeld was instrumental in developing the Bush doctrine, which calls for pre-emptive strikes, Gates prefers determent of threats.A December 2007 Newsweek article describes Gates as a “believer in containment, in waiting out the adversary with vigilance and deterring him with the threat of force.”The change Gates represents belies the commitment he has to redirecting the resources of the Defense budget. In an article he wrote for the journal Foreign Affairs, he points out, “The United States cannot expect to eliminate national security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything.”The country cannot expect to buy its way to peace. There is a penchant in Washington for addressing a problem by simply throwing money at it in hopes some of it will plug the holes of the leaky dike. Gates believes money is not the only answer.Instead of blindly filling the coffers of the Defense Department, Gates wants to remake the “culture” of the military.While he admits it’s imperative defense modernization and budgeting not “take its current dominance [on conventional military terms] for granted”, he argues it’s also “time … to consider whether the specialized, often relatively low-tech equipment well suited for stability and counterinsurgency missions is also needed.”The conflicts the nation finds itself embroiled in are “irregular” ones that require a different approach if success is to be achieved.  Gates points out the conflicts the military has entered into over the last 40 years — with the exception of Desert Storm — have all been unconventional. From Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, the trend over the last half century has occurred in engagement with forces who don’t wear uniforms or abide by accepted codes of warfare.Gates blames the bureaucracy involved in appropriating the Defense budget for not having the wherewithal to adequately prepare for what he seems to believe is the new arena of war in the 21st century.”My fundamental concern is that there is not commensurate institutional support — including in the Pentagon — for the capabilities needed to win today’s wars and some of their likely successors,” Gates writes in the Foreign Affairs article.Saddam Hussein was ousted after just three weeks, the Taliban after three months. In conventional warfare, the actions should be over.  But, seven years after the onset of military action in Afghanistan, and nearly six years after the invasion of Iraq, the mission is still not accomplished.The rules of the game have changed, and “the United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory.”Might does not make right, and that is the cliché the Bush administration forgot as it embarked on its Alexandrian conquest for world domination.Regime change caused by superior military might is now largely ineffectual, as has been shown by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s time Gates’ suggestions are given more serious consideration instead of just a polite hearing out.–Contact Drew Walker at [email protected]