Exercise in Power is written from a perspective somewhere in the middle — call it the view from the deputy’s chair, which Gates, at different points in his long career, occupied at both the C.I.A. and the National Security Council.

Gates is right that the State Department is both woefully underfunded and also lacking experts who can help in places like Afghanistan.

When the next president of the United States looks for nonmilitary means to achieve objectives abroad and to begin restoring America’s standing in the world, he would do well to read Robert M. Gates’s important new book.

This work is not a political treatise, and remains accessible throughout as the author defines 15 components as tools that administrations have used to define power.

The author relies on a half-century of service to critique the presidents who have come after them.

... incisive.