Why Ash Carter Could Improve the Strategic Debate in Washington

Other commitments prevented me from participating in the first-wave of commentary on the news that President Barack Obama intends to nominate Ash Carter to be secretary of defense. But since I already dinged the administration for firing Chuck Hagel without having lined up a replacement, I owe it to them to comment when the White House has finally moved to repair the damage. (By the way, it appears that the Keystone Kops display may be partly Hagel’s revenge, since the White House reportedly wanted Hagel to sit on the news of his pending defenestration until they had lined up his replacement and he refused. Perhaps so, but a capable decision-making system could have adapted, especially since the eventual choice was anything but surprising, so the delay is still a legitimate sign of a national security process in disarray.)

My overall reaction to the choice of Carter follows that of the majority of commentators: this is a strong pick. Some view this a good fallback given how many people announced that they did not want the job and given the appearance of a desperate scramble to fill the position. I think it is much stronger than that: Carter could well prove to be the kind of secretary of defense one would want even if you the full range of choice available, or at least the full range of choice available to a president such as Obama. (Full disclosure: Ash Carter was on my dissertation committee and so he has been a valued mentor throughout my professional career. For his part, he tells me he considered me to be a more promising mentoree when I worked in the Clinton administration, but he lost considerable confidence in my promise when I joined the Bush administration!)

The most oft-stated reservation about Carter is his reputation for not suffering fools gladly. When I have said foolish things, I have been on the receiving end of that so I think I understand the point. But in my experience, Carter is not in the same ballpark in terms of administrative style as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and so comparisons to that stormy tenure are unfair. Staff can expect to have their briefs challenged, but that can be a good thing if they are prepared to defend their positions.

Of greater importance, it is likely that Carter will not shrink from challenging sloppy thinking and dodgy strategizing throughout the administration. It is ironic that President Obama picked Hagel thinking that Hagel had a firm grasp on strategic affairs when the chief evidence of that seemed merely to be that Hagel agreed with Obama on some prominent foreign policy questions. Then Obama fired Hagel for his alleged poor grasp on strategic affairs, without reconsidering whether that new assessment called into question Obama’s own confidence in his own grasp. With Carter, Obama now has a secretary of defense who really does have a firm grasp on strategic affairs — from the outset, Carter will be the best mind among Obama’s top national security team — and Obama also has a secretary who is more likely to speak up in internal debates than his most-similar predecessor, Bob Gates, did.

Given the strong positive reaction from Republican senators, Carter will likely be confirmed by a landslide. But it won’t be an easy set of hearings. Senators are unlikely to excoriate him for his personal policy stances — although his controversial recommendation that the George W. Bush administration should have launched a preventive military strike against North Korea in 2006 will surely get some airtime. They will, however, force him to explain and justify Obama’s national security policies, many of which are failing to produce the desired results. Hagel proved unable to do that very well, though in fairness to him it may be that he himself lost confidence in those policies in recent months. If there is a reasonable case to be made for Obama’s approach, Ash Carter may be the only senior political appointee in the administration capable of making it. Certainly, it will be good for civil-military relations that that job no longer needs to fall by default to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marty Dempsey. It is always preferable for the chairman to play second fiddle than first fiddle.

The confirmation hearings will be but one important moment in what is likely to be a more active season of congressional policy oversight. Substantive oversight of this sort is one of Congress’ most vital roles, one of many functions Congress has not performed well in recent years. The new congressional lineup may usher in a new era of principled and fruitful strategic debate, with the Carter confirmation hearings constituting a high-profile launch. If so, I expect Carter to hold his own, and the fruitful give-and-take could actually improve the various strategies in urgent need of review and revision.