It is unlikely that the United States will again invade a foreign country like it did in Iraq or Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.

"The odds of repeating another Afghanistan or Iraq — invading, pacifying, and administering a large third world country — may be low," Gates said in a speech to cadets at the US army military academy at West Point.

"In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it," Gates said.

Douglas MacArthur, the World War II hero of the Pacific campaign, made the comment at a meeting with then-president John F. Kennedy in 1961 regarding US military intervention in mainland Asia.

Future US military interventions abroad will likely take the form of quick expeditions aimed at dealing with a terrorist threat or a catastrophe, Gates said.

Gates, a former CIA director, took over his current job in 2006 during the administration of former president George W. Bush, replacing Donald Rumsfeld.

Gates is set to leave his job this year, and his presentation was his farewell speech to the West Point students.

earlier related report

Mullen in Kuwait to celebrate liberation
Kuwait City (AFP) Feb 25, 2011 –

Top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen arrived in Kuwait on Friday to join celebrations marking 20 years since the country's liberation from Saddam Hussein's forces.

Iraq invaded the tiny oil-rich emirate in August 1990 and was liberated the following February by an international coalition led by the United States.

A military parade on Saturday will commemorate both the twentieth anniversary of the coalition victory and 50 years since Kuwait gained independence from Britain in 1961.

Mullen landed in Kuwait after a five-day Gulf tour during which he visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Djibouti and Bahrain.

The Gulf is of strategic importance to Washington, whose military is engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which sees Iran as a potential threat.

The United States keeps a permanent military presence in Bahrain where the US Navy's Fifth Fleet is based, and from where it patrols the Gulf to protect shipping lanes vital to the global oil trade.

Mullen's tour was intended to reassure Washington's allies in the region of continued US support at a time when many Arab regimes are being shaken by popular uprisings.

A member of Mullen's entourage, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were in Kuwait to celebrate the country's independence, first from Britain and then from Iraq.

He added that although there were prospects for a form of democracy in Kuwait, the aim of the 1991 Gulf War was not to democratise Kuwait, where the Al-Sabah dynasty has reigned for more than 250 years, but to eject Saddam Hussein's forces.

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