Ash Carter

Biography

Ash Carter was born in Philadelphia in 1954. He graduated from Yale in 1976 with a double major in physics and medieval history, then went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and earned a doctorate in theoretical physics in 1979. After postdoctoral work at Rockefeller University he turned to defence policy, writing at MIT a widely noticed assessment that the Strategic Defense Initiative could not protect the country from a Soviet attack.

He joined Harvard's Kennedy School in 1984, rising to full professor and directing its Center for Science and International Affairs. From 1993 to 1996 he was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, dealing with nuclear policy, the 1994 North Korea crisis and the removal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. He then worked on studies of catastrophic terrorism and on the North Korea Policy Review.

Under Barack Obama he served as under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics from 2009 and as deputy secretary of defense from 2011 to 2013. In February 2015 he succeeded Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense. He opened all combat roles to women and allowed transgender people to serve openly before leaving office with the administration in January 2017.

Afterwards he directed the Belfer Center at the Kennedy School. He died of a heart attack in Boston in October 2022.