Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter avoided the podium during the first speech of his tenure to Pentagon military and civilian staff, choosing instead to speak eye to eye with the hundreds of assembled civilian and military employees he now leads, but with whom he worked side by side for decades.
In many ways it was a speech more apropos of a conference table gathering, and that may have been the point: That Carter plans no major agenda changes or new directions for the agency, but instead plans to be a stabilizing force during the final two years of President Obama’s term.
“There’s plenty to do, and you all know that,” he told the assembled gathering.
Carter touched lightly on the global threats the department faces, saying, “It’s a rough world out there, there’s a lot going on.” He then listed various security challenges around the globe, including listing the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria without any further detail on how the department is facing the threat; calling Russia’s aggression in Ukraine “historical throwbacks to an era we thought we had left behind;” and called the growing rifts between China and its neighbors the “unhealed wounds of the past.”
Carter then spoke on three themes he said define “how I see this job.” First, to continue to work toward “appropriate” compensation packages for retired, current and future members of the military; and foster a department culture that respects the dignity and safety of each person in the department.
Second, to provide Obama “our best thinking and analysis” to help him make decisions, and he put a noted emphasis that the advice would come from both the civilian and military sectors.
Last, dealing with the department’s budgetary shortfalls, pointing out that to “make the case for people to spend more we need to show them we do better spending the money.”
