Asked about the fight against ISIS today, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter stressed “we need to get this over with.”
Carter was taking questions after a talk on preparing the Defense Department for the future today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“Beyond terrorism, we also potentially face future nation-state adversaries with widening geographic reach but also widening exposure, something we may want to take into account in order to de-escalate a crisis and to deter aggression. In other cases, we may have to respond to multiple threats across the globe in overlapping time frames,” Carter said during his speech.
“…We’re not postured to be as agile as we could be. Accordingly, we need to clarify the role and authority of the Chairman, and in some cases the Joint Chiefs and the Joint Staff.”
In the Q&A, Carter said of ISIS, “We have got to get these guys beaten as soon as possible, which is basically where I’m coming from.”
“We are looking for every opportunity we can take to do that. Of course, our overall strategic approach is not only to defeat ISIL, but to keep them defeated. That means you also have to look ahead to the next stage and who is going to keep the peace afterwards, which is why we try to work with local forces where they can be made capable and motivated, which is difficult in some places but that is a necessary part of the strategy,” he said.