Robert Gates attacks Trump as “cavalier about the use of nuclear weapons,” with “a record of insults to servicemen, their families and the military.” | AP Photo Bob Gates: Trump is 'beyond repair'

Neither presidential candidate has offered a compelling vision on national security, former Defense Secretary Bob Gates writes in a scathing Wall Street Journal op-ed -- but Donald Trump is “beyond repair.”

Gates, who ran the Pentagon under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, is critical of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, citing her advocacy for the invasion of Libya, her reversal on trade agreements she supported as secretary of state, and her opposition to the troop surge in Iraq.


“She has much-discussed credibility issues apart from national security, but these also influence foreign perceptions of reliability and trust,” Gates writes.

But he savages the Republican nominee over several paragraphs, saying Trump is “in a league of his own” when it comes to demonstrating his credibility on foreign affairs. Gates rips Trump for his famous wall, his vocal support of torture, his embrace of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, and his skepticism of NATO. He also attacks Trump as “cavalier about the use of nuclear weapons,” with “a record of insults to servicemen, their families and the military.” He criticizes the GOP standard-bearer as “willfully ignorant about the rest of the world, about our military and its capabilities, and about government itself.”

“He has no clue about the difference between negotiating a business deal and negotiating with sovereign nations,” Gates writes. “A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander-in-chief is too great a risk for America.”

Trump lashed out at Gates early Saturday, tweeting, "I never met former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He knows nothing about me. But look at the results under his guidance - a total disaster!"

Gates holds out the prospect that he will ultimately endorse Clinton, urging her 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. Whether and how she addresses these issues will, I believe, affect how many people vote — including me.”

But he rules out Trump as “stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform. He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief.”