Harvard expert nominated for key Pentagon post

[FrenchieCat]

Source: Boston Globe

WASHINGTON -- President Obama late this afternoon nominated Harvard professor Ashton B. Carter, a leading authority on arms control, to take on a surprising new role, according to top administration officials -- as the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer.

The choice of Carter to run the office that oversees hundreds of billions of dollars for new weapons and research -- and the focus of intense lobbying by defense firms, retired generals, and members of Congress -- has been rumored for weeks. And word of his pending nomination has already sparked concern within the defense industry and some of the Pentagon bureaucracy.
snip
Unlike most of his predecessors selected to be under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, Carter has no professional ties to America's arms makers or manufacturing industry, nor has he spent his career in government procurement. Instead, from his perch at Harvard's Kennedy School, Carter has been criticizing the Pentagon for buying too many armaments it doesn't need, decrying what he calls a lack of discipline and "failure to take account of cost growth in weapons systems and defense services."

A trained scientist with a doctorate in theoretical physics and a degree in Medieval history, Carter's advocates say the long-time Harvard professor and national security specialist is being chosen because his combination of technical expertise and knowledge of defense strategy will be needed to make what Gates calls "difficult choices" about which weapons programs to invest in and which ones to terminate.



Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/02/harvard_expert.html

---

According to the article, this is who will be deciding what we need, and what we can do without.

Read the rest of the article....

[Hardrada]

1. More chain mail for the Crusaders. More catapults for the propaganda.

[FrenchieCat]

2. Come again?

I don't get your drift. Are you saying that the haters will hate even more? :shrug:

[Hardrada]

7. Oops! Wrong administration. Actually

I was taken by the fact that this guy has a degree in Medieval History!!

[RoyGBiv]

3. This is excellent ...

... simply excellent.

[Politicalboi]

4. Why is President Obama

Making us unsafe??? :sarcasm: I bet the FReePers are gonna go ape shit over this.

[bobthedrummer]

5. Muckety map on Ashton B. Carter (hmmm...)

link requires Java
http://www.muckety.com/Ashton-B-Carter/86669.muckety

[MADem]

6. Carter has no professional ties to America's arms makers or manufacturing industry, nor has he spent

his career in government procurement.

He's probably done a little work for the government (cough) before, too, aside from what's on his resume, which would probably skew him towards weapons systems that actually work.

That would be refreshing. I hope he does well. If William Perry likes him it's a good sign. Perry knows a thing or two about weapons procurement:

From 1977 to 1981 Perry served as under secretary of defense for research and engineering, where he had responsibility for weapon systems procurement and research and development. Among other achievements, he was instrumental in the development of stealth aircraft technology.

http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/perry.htm

[frog92969]

8. A ray of sunshine

Sounds like the right person for the job.

[watrwefitinfor]

9. Star wars.

Maybe he's the one who will shed clear light on that boondoggle.

He seems to have an extensive background as an expert in the various proposed missile defense systems, going back to Reagan's Star Wars project.

Googling turned up a number of articles and a book he co-wrote some years back. I can't tell for certain, but he seems to be against SDI type systems. He seems to have testified against it to a congressional panel, but it's unclear to me just what his position is now. My broadband is just too slow for me to do a comprehensive search.

'STAR WARS' RUNS INTO NEW CRITICISM

WARREN E. LEARY, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: April 25, 1988

Ashton B. Carter, a physicist who is associate director of the Harvard Center for Science and International Affairs and a Defense Department consultant with extensive knowledge of S.D.I., said that he had seen the report and that it offered further evidence of why the system should not be deployed.

''This is just another carefully done study of S.D.I. that brings the whole thing into question,'' Mr. Carter said. ''What is different about this report, which is one of the most extensive ever done, is that it focuses on the near-term, early deployment of the phase one system.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE1DB1239F936A15757C0A96E948260&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/D/Design

We need to know more about this guy. He may be a big positive.


Wat