'Donald Trump is beyond repair,' says former U.S. secretary

College of William & Mary Chancellor and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates fired his harshest language on his contribution to Wall Street Journal on Friday. Gates said that both Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump on their preparedness to use of force, but when it comes to (credibility problems in security), Donald Trump is in a league of his own.

Gates told in his opinion editorial that the first serious crisis to face for our new president most likely will be international, citing tug of war between the U.S. and China in the East Asian region, nuclear threats from North Korea, and possible terror led by the Islamic State (IS) and others. He also denounced that Trump says he has expressed support for building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, for Russian President Putin’s dictatorial leadership, South Korea and Japan for the developing their nuclear weapons, which shows “willfully ignorant.”

Gates continued his criticism, saying that Trump has a record of insults to servicemen, their families, and declared our senior military leaders ‘embarrassing to our country.' He also added that as of late, he appears to be rethinking some of these positions, but he has yet to learn that when a president shoots off his mouth, there are no do-overs.

Gates also denounced Hillary that she was the senior-most advocate for using the U.S. military to bring ill-fated regime change in Libya, adding that she also failed to meet expectations in the international affairs. "Mrs. Clinton has time before the election to address forthrightly her trustworthiness, to reassure people about her judgment, to demonstrate her willingness to stake out one or more positions on national security at odds with her party's conventional wisdom, and to speak beyond generalities about how she would deal with China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, the Middle East -- and international trade," the former defense minister wrote. "Whether and how she addresses these issues will, I believe, affect how many people vote – including me.”

Gates is not the only conservative security and diplomatic expert who officially opposed to Trump as the presidential candidate. In August, 50 of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, former top aides including the former director of C.I.A. Michael Hayden, former Director of National Intelligence and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, signed a letter declaring that they are opposed to Donald Trump.

한기재기자 record@donga.com