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Staying OnKeeping Robert Gates as secretary of defense is a great idea.

By Fred KaplanPosted Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008, at 2:34 PM ET

Robert GatesIf the reports are true that Robert Gates will stay on as President Obama's defense secretary, the move is a stroke of brilliance—politically and substantively.

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In his nearly two years at the helm of the Pentagon, Gates has delivered a series of speeches on the future direction of military policy. He has urged officers to recognize the shift in the face of warfare from the World War II legacy of titanic armored battles between comparably mighty foes to the modern reality of small shadow wars against terrorists and insurgents.

More than that, he has called for systematic adjustments to this new reality: canceling weapons systems that aren't suited to these kinds of wars and building more weapons that are; reforming the promotion boards to reward and advance the creative officers who have proved most adept at this style of warfare; rethinking the roles and missions of the individual branches of the armed services; siphoning some of the military's missions, especially those dealing with "nation building," to civilian agencies.

From the start, he knew that he wouldn't have time to make a lot of headway in these campaigns—which, within the military, represent fairly radical ideas. His intent was to spell out an agenda, and lay the groundwork, for the next administration.

Now it seems he's going to be in the next administration. And it's a good bet that President Barack Obama will be more receptive to Gates' agenda than President George W. Bush ever was. First, Obama is open to new ideas generally. Second, at his Nov. 25 press conference, Obama said he would direct his new budget director to go over every program, every line item, with an eye toward eliminating those that don't work or aren't needed—and he pointedly included the Department of Defense among the agencies to be audited.

In short, Gates might be able to do many of the things that until now he has managed only to advocate.

Not only that, Gates has cultivated such widespread support and acclaim throughout the Pentagon, and especially on Capitol Hill, that he might be able to push his changes through. (A fresher face would, first, take a year or so discovering what needs changing and then might get thwarted by bureaucratic and congressional resistance.)

The fact that Gates is staying on at the job (again, assuming the press reports are true) may be a sign that Obama has assured him he'll have support from the White House. Gates came to the Pentagon reluctantly. He'd spent 30 years in Washington, in the CIA (advancing from junior analyst all the way up to director) and the White House (including as deputy national security adviser), serving under every president from Richard Nixon to George H.W. Bush. But he was enjoying his time as president of Texas A&M University when George W. Bush asked him to replace Donald Rumsfeld. He took the job out of a sense of patriotic duty, but he couldn't wait to leave—to get back to the lakeside house that he and his wife own in the Pacific Northwest.

When I interviewed him for a New York Times Magazine article a year ago, he showed me a "countdown" meter, which he carried with him everywhere, displaying how many days were left in his term of office. I noted that some lawmakers, including Democrats, wished he would stay on in the next administration. He replied, "I am very wary of saying 'Never.' " But, he added, "The circumstances under which I would do that are inconceivable to me."