President Barack Obama is reported to have selected Ashton B Carter as the next US Defence Secretary in place of Chuck Hagel, who stepped down last week under pressure from the White House following differences with the President and his inner circle.
An official announcement is still to be made, but well-placed sources reported that Obama has made up his mind on Carter, a former Harvard professor with years of experience at the Pentagon till he left a year ago. As second-in-command at the Pentagon for over two years till the end of 2013, Carter played a significant role in pushing the highly-acclaimed Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) with India.
Carter and former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon were the designated DTTI point persons that sought to promote technology transfer in the defence sector and give a fillip to co-production and co-development of defence equipment.
Regarded as a long-time friend of India, Carter, at the instance of former Defence Secretary leon Panetta, is credited with actions that helped streamline bureaucratic hurdles and ease the technology-transfer restrictions that had for long come in the way of sale of US weapons to India.
Carter has described himself as “an early and strong supporter of US-India relationship” by virtue of his association with the Aspen Strategy Group more than 15 years ago. “I like to think of India and the United States as kindred souls, sharing common values, as well as common interests and strong bonds in trade and technology, as well as security,” Carter said during his India visit in July 2012 to push DTTI.
An alumnus of Yale University who then received his doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar, Carter had served as Pentagon’s top weapons buyer from 2009 to 2011 when he was Under Secretary of Defence for Acquisition, Technology and logistics. In October 2011, he was elevated to Deputy Secretary of Defence.
Carter, once named, may have a relatively smooth Senate confirmation, given that both the outgoing chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (Democrat Carl levin) and the incoming head (Republican John McCain) have a good opinion of his work at the Pentagon. McCain has described him as “non-controversial”.
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confined himself to commending Carter as someone who had “served the president and the American people well” during his years at the Pentagon.
“He is somebody who deserves and has demonstrated strong bipartisan support for his previous service in Government with detailed understanding of the way the Department of Defence works,” Earnest added.