WEST POINT MILITARY ACADEMY, New York — Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Friday against committing the US military to big land wars in Asia or the Middle East, saying anyone proposing otherwise "should have his head examined."

Gates offered the blunt advice -- hard won after a decade of bitter conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq -- in what he said would be his last speech to cadets at the US Army's premier school for training future officers.

"The odds of repeating another Afghanistan or Iraq -- invading, pacifying, and administering a large third world country -- may be low," Gates said.