ASHTON CARTER: TECHNOCRAT FOR DEFENSE- WILL HE CONFRONT WEST WING MICRO-MANAGEMENT?

Posted By on December 3rd, 2014

http://online.wsj.com/articles/a-technocrat-for-defense-1417564734

Ashton Carter as Defense Secretary a choice that will likely ensure a smooth confirmation in Congress and an easy transition at the Pentagon, where Mr. Carter was until recently a well-regarded deputy secretary. The larger question is whether a technocrat can do much more than mind the store while the White House conducts its meandering foreign policy.

The good news in this presumptive nomination is that Mr. Carter has the managerial chops to run one of the world’s largest bureaucracies. A trained physicist, Mr. Carter has a reputation for knowing his way around the Pentagon’s byzantine budget and procurement systems. That’s a welcome contrast to outgoing Secretary Chuck Hagel, who had to undergo on-the-job training.

Defense is one cabinet position that cannot be occupied by a lightweight. And experience is particularly significant now, as the Pentagon needs to make decisions about investing in a new generation of ballistic-missile submarines and a replacement bomber for our ancient fleet of B-52s and B-1s.

Even more important is the modernization of the nuclear arsenal (average age of a warhead: 27 years), given that recent testing scandals have revealed dangerous shortfalls in management, infrastructure and morale. Russia and China have invested heavily to modernize and expand their atomic arsenals, and Mr. Carter will need to make certain that America’s shrunken nuclear triad remains credible as a deterrent against adversaries and an umbrella for non-nuclear allies.

Addressing long-term challenges isn’t enough, however. The next Defense Secretary will face a world of ambitious geopolitical adversaries, from Moscow to Mosul to Tehran, who believe that Mr. Obama’s final years in office are an opportunity to exploit weakness at the White House. Mr. Carter will face an especially difficult task finding ways to reassure allies that American power remains credible in this era of U.S. retreat.

Mr. Carter will also have to face—and perhaps confront—this Administration’s habit of West Wing micromanagement. There is a reason former Undersecretary Michèle Flournoy and Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, among others, took themselves out of the running for the Defense job. It can’t be fun to work for the Keystone Kissingers in Mr. Obama’s inner circle. We trust Mr. Carter will make clear before he takes the job that, while he answers to the President, he needs enough authority to run the Pentagon.

Mr. Carter will be lucky if Mr. Obama is finally figuring out that he needs some grown-up foreign-policy advisers if he is to salvage his legacy. And as Mr. Obama’s fourth Defense Secretary, he’ll also be all-but unfireable.

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