If the reports that Robert Gates will be kept on as Defense Secretary for the first year of the Obama administration are true, it raises all kinds of questions -- on nuclear weapons policy, on Iraq, on military spending, on the balance between military and civilian tools of foreign assistance, and on policy towards Iran.

Gates is no Donald Rumsfeld, but nor is he an inspired choice. If Obama felt the need to appoint a Republican to his national security team, I would have much preferred Chuck Hagel at the State Department, with someone like Sam Nunn at Defense (assuming either or both of them would have been open to serving in these positions). But, we are where we are. What might the Gates appointment mean for the evolution of U.S. defense policy during Obama's crucial first year?

Gates is a realist, with all the pros and cons that designation entails. On the positive side of the ledger, he is not scouring the planet looking for dragons to slay, as indicated by his quiet but clear opposition to taking military action against Iran. And although he is a proponent of the surge in Iraq, he also served on the Baker-Hamilton commission, which took a much more pragmatic view of how to disentangle the U.S. from this ill-advised war. Gates' good relations with Gen. David Petraeus and other military leaders could cut either way -- he might be a good messenger for President Obama in pushing forward on troop reductions in Iraq; or, his very appointment might signal that Obama is already thinking of going slower on withdrawal than he has so far indicated.

Another positive has been Gates' advocacy of more funding for diplomacy generally and the State Department in particular. In a speech at Kansas State University, he noted, among other things, that there are more personnel in the average aircraft carrier battle group (of which the U.S. has a dozen) than there are trained diplomats in the U.S. foreign service. He also indicated -- not surprisingly -- that he was not suggesting that the funds to pump up State come at the expense of the Pentagon budget, even though military spending (counting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) is now nearly twenty times as much as the budget for the State Department and related international affairs programs. In fact, Gates' has embraced the neo-con inspired call for a floor on Pentagon spending of 4% of Gross Domestic Product, regardless of what happens in Iraq and Afghanistan. That would imply a substantial increase from current levels, which are already at the highest point since World War II. The idea of a "4% solution" on defense has been thoroughly debunked by Travis Sharp of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation (see previous link).

So, a year of Gates could impede the best elements of Obama's foreign policy vision, or he could be a reasonably skilled "implementer" of clear directives from the White House.

The one area where a Gates extension is most troubling to me is on the issue of nuclear weapons. At a pre-election speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Gates endorsed the concept of building a next generation nuclear weapon, the so-called "Reliable Replacement Warhead," while pouring cold water on the idea of ever achieving a world free of nuclear weapons (an Obama campaign pledge). He did, however, indicate that there should be a new agreement with Russia to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals below the levels currently promised, and that there should be an extension of the important verification regime that is embodied in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which is otherwise set to expire in the fall of 2009. But as Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund has suggested, the Obama administration should take advantage of the current political climate to take a "transformationalist" rather than an "incrementalist" approach to eliminating nuclear weapons. And Gates is nothing if not an incrementalist.

Early in the new year, members of Congress should create opportunities to firmly but respectfully question Gates on all of these issues -- plans for withdrawal from Iraq, policy towards Iran and its nuclear program, the balance between military and non-military tools of security, the appropriate level of military spending, and the best "path to zero" on nuclear weapons. As noted above, President Obama will be making policy. But Gates will have real influence, and he should be pressed to exert that influence in the right direction -- which would mean an about face on key issues like military spending and nuclear weapons policy.