Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
12/5/2014
President Obama has tapped former Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter, a physicist who oversaw various aspects of U.S. nuclear weapons policy working under two administrations, as outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s successor, the White House said on Dec. 5. Hagel resigned on Nov. 24, 10 days after he announced he would oversee reforms to the U.S. nuclear enterprise recently wrought with two cheating scandals, a drug investigation covering multiple Air Force bases and leader misconduct. On Nov. 14, Hagel announced during a Pentagon press conference that over the Future Years’ Defense Program, the Pentagon plans to spend billions—most likely $10 billion, he said—on top of the annual $15 billion-plus that currently funds the Pentagon nuclear enterprise. The money would finance reforms in personnel structures and equipment within a nuclear enterprise marred by recent Air Force and Navy cheating scandals.
During interviews this week with NS&D Monitor, arms control advocates and nuclear experts dismissed any notion that the timing of the transition would impact implementation of the reforms, but had mixed opinions about how strongly Carter would push for modernization, if confirmed by the Senate. After neglect and mishandling within nuclear forces have been treated as a “political hot potato” in recent years, the Obama Administration has prioritized rejuvenation of the enterprise, a long-term project that will demand the focus of future defense secretaries, whether it’s Carter or someone else, according to James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
‘Continuity Rather Than Change’ Predicted
In an interview this week with NS&D Monitor, Acton noted that lower-level officials would handle practical implementation of the reforms, and the next defense secretary would most likely continue, rather than reorganize, the policies Hagel sponsored. “I think what we’re going to see is much, much more continuity rather than change,” Acton said. Carter would also have a good eye for nuclear safety, as a “nuclear wonk” who co-edited a widely respected textbook on nuclear command and control, Acton said. “Carter, personally, clearly has an interest in this subject and would have a lead, potentially, over other candidates, with his knowledge of the area,” Acton said. Carter earned a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford University, and has been involved in many nuclear weapon-focused books, including Managing Nuclear Operations, Soviet Nuclear Fission: Control of the Nuclear Arsenal in a Disintegrating Soviet Union and Cooperative Denuclearization: From Pledges to Deeds.
Carter worked for two years as Deputy Defense Secretary under Hagel and predecessor Leon Panetta, and from April 2009 to October 2011 as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. His experience with the current Administration followed three years of service in the Clinton Administration overseeing strategic affairs and nuclear weapons policy as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, a tenure which also saw him lead the first Nuclear Posture Review in 1994. Carter also served on the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.
Peter Huessy, a nuclear expert and president of defense consulting firm GeoStrategic Analysis, told NS&D Monitor that because of Carter’s experience in the nuclear business, he would be “extremely capable” of implementing Hagel’s reforms. Huessy also credited Hagel with forthright acknowledgement of problems within the nuclear forces, and said he has put the enterprise on a good path to distance itself from cultural issues, a direction he said he expects Carter would continue. Over the years, Huessy added, numerous reviews into the nuclear enterprise have revealed similar neglect-related flaws within the nuclear enterprise, and Carter will most likely implement the reforms as Hagel outlined. “I don’t see Ash Carter coming in and completely changing the review,” Huessy said. “Mr. Hagel, the Secretary, has put into place a plan that, if implemented, would go a long way toward restoring the credibility and the capability of the deterrent.”
Huessy also said he expected Carter would hit the ground running. “To be honest with you, this is rocket science, but for those like Ash Carter who have been in this business for quite a long time, he’ll know what we’re doing,” Huessy said. Timing of the secretarial replacement wouldn’t have much impact on implementation of the reforms, as the top DoD position would probably have little to do with the reforms’ day-to-day enforcement and evaluation, Tom Collina, director of policy at Ploughshares Fund, told NS&D Monitor.
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told an Associated Press reporter this week that she was “not concerned” about any possible impacts Hagel’s exit would have on the implementation of the nuclear enterprise reforms he announced on Nov. 14. “We are all on board that the changes need to happen and that it can’t be a one-shot deal for one month or one year,” the AP article quotes her as saying. “Rather, we all have to keep on it.” James added in the interview that she would expect a confirmed Carter to support nuclear enterprise funding and reforms, which the service has already begun to implement.
Carter: Nuclear Weapons ‘Not a Big Swinger’ of the Defense Budget
Carter drew backlash from arms control advocates after a July 2013 speech at the Aspen Security Forum during which he said nuclear weapons had little bearing on the defense budget and “don’t actually cost that much,” noting that the U.S. spends about $12 billion a year on delivery vehicles and $4 billion on nuclear command and control, a small portion of the approximately $525 billion defense budget. “[I]t is not a big swinger of the budget,” Carter said. “You don’t save a lot of money by having arms control and so forth. But the reason you do it is because these things—though they don’t cost that much—are the most awesome and terrible inventions of humankind. And, you know, I’m a physicist … and physicists always felt that there was some responsibility that went with having created this technology.”
Collina said it was “too soon to say” how much, if at all, Carter would push for nuclear modernization in a tight funding environment. “He’s in the past said certain things about nuclear weapons being affordable and, in fact, being cheap,” Collina said. “I think once he comes in and realizes the budget challenges he faces, he might decide otherwise because I think he’s going to hopefully see that there’s too much money going in the direction of nuclear forces given the threats we face today and that, whether he considers them cheap or not, this is a potential area where he can redirect money from low-priority threats to high-priority threats and should do so.”
In addition to staying the course of Hagel’s announced nuclear reforms, Carter could maintain the status quo of disarmament and modernization, Acton said. “I just don’t view either veering toward disarmament or veering toward greater nuclearization, if you like,” Acton said. “I think either of those options is very unlikely. There’s just not the political space to do so.”
More Modernization Would Require Congressional Backing
If the Administration and Congress both support nuclear modernization, Carter would be one of the best at pushing the upgrades through federal government bureaucracy, Huessy said. “He knows the Pentagon, he knows the Hill, he knows the professional nuclear community, and in Washington, even if it’s in the budget, even if Congress approves it, you’ve got to make sure it’s spent right, it’s done right, and I think the proof is in the pudding.”
Given Carter’s past-statements, Collina said, the presumptive nominee might not regard the nuclear enterprise as an appropriate area for budget cuts, but Collina also underscored the difficulty in predicting the future. “I would not have expected Chuck Hagel to be as supportive of the nuclear enterprise and expanding it as he turned out to be, particularly given his background and positions he was associating himself before he went in,” Collina said. “So I think it’s very difficult to look at someone’s record before they go into office and say that’s how they’re going to be once they’re in office. I think the transformation is unpredictable and the position is intense with all kinds of different priorities fighting against each other.”
During the Clinton Administration, Carter actively pursued nonproliferation initiatives, which included helping formulate the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Carter’s additional experience includes chairing the Preventive Defense Project at Harvard University’s Belfer Center.
