page_title: Robert Gates
section_title: Post-Obama administration
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Gates / Post-Obama administration
caption_attribution_description: English: Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, center, speaks with former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, right, and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta at the Peace Through Strength Forum and Awards dinner at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in Simi Vally, Calif., Nov. 16, 2013.
context_page_description: Robert Michael Gates is an American intelligence analyst, and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. He was originally appointed by President George W. Bush and was retained for service by President Barack Obama. Gates began his career serving as an officer in the United States Air Force but was quickly recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency. Gates served for 26 years in the CIA and the National Security Council, and was Director of Central Intelligence under President George H. W. Bush. After leaving the CIA, Gates became president of Texas A&M University and was a member of several corporate boards. Gates served as a member of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan commission co-chaired by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, that studied the lessons of the Iraq War.
  Gates was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush as Secretary of Defense after the 2006 election, replacing Donald Rumsfeld. He was confirmed with bipartisan support. In a 2007 profile written by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Time named Gates one of the year's most influential people.
context_section_description: Gates is a Principal, along with Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley and Anja Manuel, in RiceHadleyGates LLC, a strategic consulting firm.
  On September 6, 2011 it was announced that Gates had accepted the position of chancellor at the College of William & Mary, succeeding Sandra Day O'Connor. He took the office of the chancellor on February 3, 2012.
  On May 2, 2012 Starbucks Corporation announced that Gates had been elected to the Starbucks board of directors. He will serve on the board's nominating and corporate governance committee.
  On October 30, 2013 the Boy Scouts of America announced that Gates had been elected to the National executive board. While on this board, he will serve as the national president-elect. In May 2014, he began a two-year-long term as the BSA national president. Randall Stephenson, chairman and chief executive officer of AT&T Inc. serves under Gates as the president-elect. Gates has succeeded Wayne Perry as the national president. On May 21, 2015, Gates stated that the "status quo [ban on gay adult leaders] in [the BSA] movement's membership standards cannot be sustained" and that he would no longer seek to revoke the charters of scout units that accept gay adult leaders.
  In his memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Gates alternately criticized and praised Obama's military leadership, writing, "I never doubted [his] support for the troops, only his support for their mission [in Afghanistan]", and "I was very proud to work for a president who had made one of the most courageous decisions I had ever witnessed in the White House [by authorizing the raid against Osama bin Laden]."
  In the wake of the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, Gates wrote an op-ed piece on Vladimir Putin, Russian expansionism, the nascent sanctions regime, the US military budget, and the need for bold leadership.
  Gates, along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Republican former foreign policy officials, recommended to incoming President Donald Trump that Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson be considered for the Trump Administration as Secretary of State.
  In September 2018, Gates was re-appointed to serve a second seven-year term as chancellor at the College of William & Mary.
  Gates also serves as an Honorary Director on the Board of Directors at the Atlantic Council.
caption: Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel speaks with Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, November 2013
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