Ash Carter

Secretary of Defense (2015–2017) Nomination and confirmation

Carter was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the 25th United States secretary of defense on December 5, 2014.

In his nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said he was "very much inclined" to increase U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Speaking on the Middle East, he said the U.S. must militarily ensure a "lasting defeat" of Islamic State (ISIL) forces in Iraq and Syria. He also opined that the threats posed by Iran were as serious as those posed by the ISIL forces.

Carter was approved unanimously on February 1, 2015, by the Senate Armed Services Committee. He was confirmed by the Senate on February 12 by a vote of 93–5 and sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden on February 17.

Tenure Vice President Joe Biden swears in Ash Carter as the 25th defense secretary as Carter's wife, Stephanie, looks on during a private ceremony at the White House. In May 2015, Carter warned the People's Republic of China to halt its rapid island-building in the South China Sea.

In October 2015, Carter condemned Russian air strikes against ISIL and other rebel groups in Syria. On October 8, 2015, Carter, speaking at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, said he believed Russia would soon start paying the price for its military intervention in Syria in the form of reprisal attacks and casualties.

A controversy arose in December 2015 when it was revealed that Carter had used a personal email account while conducting official business as Secretary of Defense.

In January 2016, at Carter's direction, the Department of Defense opened all military roles to women, overriding a request by the Marine Corps to continue to exempt women from certain positions. In June 2016, Carter announced that transgender individuals would be allowed to join and openly serve in the military.

Other roles From 1990 to 1993, Carter was chairman of the editorial board of International Security. Previously, he held positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and Rockefeller University.

In 1997, Carter and former CIA director John M. Deutch co-chaired the Catastrophic Terrorism Study Group which urged greater attention to terrorism. In 1998, Carter, Deutch, and Philip Zelikow (later executive director of the 9/11 Commission) published an article on "catastrophic terrorism" in Foreign Affairs. From 1998 to 2000, he was deputy to William J. Perry at the North Korea Policy Review and traveled with him to Pyongyang. Carter was also co-director of the Preventive Defense Project, which designs and promotes security policies aimed at preventing the emergence of major new threats to the United States.

Carter had been a longtime member of the Defense Science Board and the Defense Policy Board, the principal advisory bodies to the Secretary of Defense. During the Bush administration, he was also a member of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's International Security Advisory Board; co-chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Policy Advisory Group; a consultant to the Defense Science Board; a member of the National Missile Defense White Team, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control. He had testified frequently before the armed services, foreign relations, and homeland security committees of both houses of Congress. Carter served as an independent director on the General Electric board of directors from 2020 until his death.

He was also a member of the boards of directors of the Mitre Corporation and Mitretek Systems and the advisory boards of MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Draper Laboratory. Carter was also a member of the Aspen Strategy Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Physical Society, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Carter was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was named as a Fellow in the American Physical Society (Forum on Physics & Society) in 2015. In April 2021, Carter joined Tanium Board of Directors. From 2021, he had been a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). In 2021, Carter joined Shield Capital's board of Strategic Advisors.

Positions

Views on Iran Carter's views on Iran had been perceived as hawkish.

Support for military interventions

Carter was a supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as an advocate of "preventative" invasions of North Korea and Iran. In response to increased tension in Ukraine, Carter considered deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe that could pre-emptively destroy Russian weapons.

Military involvement in presidential elections In January 2021, Carter, alongside all of the other living former secretaries of defense, published a Washington Post op-ed piece opposing President Donald Trump's summons for military involvement in overturning the 2020 election results, and urging for a peaceful transition of power.

Personal life and death Carter was married to Stephanie DeLeeuw Carter.

Carter died from a heart attack at his home in Boston on October 24, 2022, at age 68.

Awards Carter received the Ten Outstanding Young Americans award from the United States Junior Chamber in 1987. For his service to national security, Carter was awarded the DOD's highest civilian medal, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, five times. For critical liaison efforts with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the geographic combatant commanders, he was awarded the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 2013 and the Defense Intelligence Medal for his contributions to intelligence. Ballistic Missile Defense (1984) Directed Energy Missile Defense in Space (1984) Managing Nuclear Operations (1987) Soviet Nuclear Fission: Control of the Nuclear Arsenal in a Disintegrating Soviet Union (1991)