Ash Carter, "Inside the Five Sided Box"

Ash Carter discusses his book, "Inside the Five Sided Box", at Politics and Prose.

One of our most highly respected career politicians, Carter started his nearly four-decade run at the Department of Defense as a physicist protecting the nation from Soviet nuclear threats and ended it as the country’s 25th Secretary of Defense under Obama. Drawing on his vast experience, Carter, now Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School, gives a detailed inside view of the nation’s single-largest institution. Demystifying a part of official Washington often distrusted or misunderstood, Carter explains many of the important defense policy decisions made in the last half century, outlines the DOD’s role in protecting the security and freedom of billions of people around the world, and shows why the Pentagon and other intelligence agencies are more crucial than ever.

Carter is in conversation with David Ignatius, foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Post and author most recently of The Quantum Spy.

For over thirty-five years Ash Carter served in numerous jobs in the Department of Defense, mostly recently as the twenty-fifth Secretary of Defense under President Obama. He currently serves as the Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School. He also is an innovation fellow at MIT. A native of Philadelphia, he and his wife, Stephanie, have two grown children.

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Produced by Tom Warren