US President Barack Obama has
nominated Ashton Carter, a former
deputy defence secretary, to be his
next defence secretary, replacing
Chuck Hagel.
Carter, 60, has support among
Republicans who will take control of
the Senate next month and decide on
his confirmation.
Reporting from Washington after a
news conference by Obama
announcing his defence nominee, Al
Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said that
Carter is an interesting choice for the
position because Hagel was reportedly
forced out for the reason that the US
needed someone with a different set of
experiences.
“But Carter does not have a lot of
experience in the Middle East, where
the Islamic State of Syria and the
Levant (ISIL) poses one of the biggest
challenges faced by the military at the
moment,” she said.
“It’s interesting that he is being
heralded as having all this
experience. I’ve spoken to people
behind the scenes who say he’s a fast
learner.”
Carter has gained a reputation as an
expert on hi-tech weapons and
military budgets, portraying himself as
a reformer intent on making the vast
Pentagon bureaucracy more efficient.
While Carter is skilled in weapons
programmes and technological trends,
he has less experience overseeing
war strategy and has never served in
uniform – unlike Hagel who served in
the military and was wounded in the
Vietnam War.
An academic by training and a holder
of a doctorate in theoretical physics
from the University of Oxford, Carter
worked in the Pentagon during Bill
Clinton’s presidency, overseeing
nuclear arms policies and helped with
efforts to remove nuclear weapons
from Ukraine and other former Soviet
territories.
A former professor at Harvard
University’s Kennedy School of
Government, Carter served as the
Pentagon’s top weapons buyer from
2009 to 2011 and then as deputy
defence secretary until 2013.
nominated Ashton Carter, a former
deputy defence secretary, to be his
next defence secretary, replacing
Chuck Hagel.
Carter, 60, has support among
Republicans who will take control of
the Senate next month and decide on
his confirmation.
Reporting from Washington after a
news conference by Obama
announcing his defence nominee, Al
Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said that
Carter is an interesting choice for the
position because Hagel was reportedly
forced out for the reason that the US
needed someone with a different set of
experiences.
“But Carter does not have a lot of
experience in the Middle East, where
the Islamic State of Syria and the
Levant (ISIL) poses one of the biggest
challenges faced by the military at the
moment,” she said.
“It’s interesting that he is being
heralded as having all this
experience. I’ve spoken to people
behind the scenes who say he’s a fast
learner.”
Carter has gained a reputation as an
expert on hi-tech weapons and
military budgets, portraying himself as
a reformer intent on making the vast
Pentagon bureaucracy more efficient.
While Carter is skilled in weapons
programmes and technological trends,
he has less experience overseeing
war strategy and has never served in
uniform – unlike Hagel who served in
the military and was wounded in the
Vietnam War.
An academic by training and a holder
of a doctorate in theoretical physics
from the University of Oxford, Carter
worked in the Pentagon during Bill
Clinton’s presidency, overseeing
nuclear arms policies and helped with
efforts to remove nuclear weapons
from Ukraine and other former Soviet
territories.
A former professor at Harvard
University’s Kennedy School of
Government, Carter served as the
Pentagon’s top weapons buyer from
2009 to 2011 and then as deputy
defence secretary until 2013.
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