Ashton B. Carter (1954–2022)

After reading this book I can only imagine the horror Ash Carter felt as Turkish battalions marched into northern Syria and began pounding the Kurdish divisions who did the dirty work of the United States Army in its fight against ISIL.

Carter must be appalled.

And appalled by the micro-management of diplomatic affairs by the White House, not to mention the blurring of lines between diplomacy and political muckraking.

In this book ostensibly about the leadership of the US Department of Defence by a civilian, Ash Carter stays away from a lot of the sausage making that goes into approving defence spending.

He does shine the light on spending on speculative weapons and runaway spending on familiar programs.

While he empathizes with people who are somewhat flummoxed the extent of US spending on “defence” he clearly believes that the US simply doesn’t work without these expenditures. US commerce, US standards of democracy, and freedoms guaranteed by the US constitution rely to some extent on US hard power.

Clearly, these expenditures are about more than “defence.” They are about hegemony, a hegemony predicated on what is likely to occur in the world over the next 50 years.
… (meer)

Carter takes us on a fascinating trip through the Pentagon based on his long experience working in several positions there. It confirms my opinion that there are Eastern educated career technocrats who work through various political appointee positions and that they communicate with each other, independent of party. Carter is fairly frank about various issues in his administration as Obama's last SECDEF. He gets a few things wrong, for example, he can't distinguish between a Navy Surface Warfare Officer "black shoe" and a Supply Corps officer, or "porkchop," but he did get the other two Navy tribes correct. He talks about the Combatant Commanders, but not all of them....just the ones that he thinks did a good job or that help to support his position--dang editors must have eschewed the others. This book does an excellent job describing the way that the DOD works and it could be a primer for future joint service officers. He is articulate and describes his points with clarity of purpose. His time as DEPSECDEF and SECDEF is after my 38 years of service. RIP Ash.… (meer)