Ashton Carter

F-35 Fighter

Shortly after Carter took office, an internal Pentagon "joint estimate team" (JET) issued an assessment of the F-35 fighter program that predicted sizable cost growth and schedule slips. Carter sprung into action, leading what he dubbed a months-long "deep dive" into the weeds of program data. After reviewing the F-35 books and huddling with military and industry officials, he began to form a plan. The JET's "study shows both some cost increases and schedule slips, which we should do everything we can to avoid," Carter told Defense News in an exclusive November 2009, interview. "Those are forecasts which say what will happen if we don't change what we're doing. And we should change what we're doing so that those predictions don't come fully to pass."

Pentagon officials ultimately adopted the estimating team's forecasts. Making headlines, Carter helped spur Gates' decision to fire the two-star general who was the program manager, and to add two years to the testing regime, delay full-rate production, and withhold over $600 million from prime contractor Lockheed Martin due to poor performance.

KC-X Tanker

Coming into office, Carter inherited the controversial race between American-based Boeing and Northrop Grumman and its European partner EADS to replace the service's aging KC-135s. The latest attempt at buying new tankers will come at a time when the economic crisis has some U.S. lawmakers ramping up protectionist rhetoric. In fall 2009, Carter and his fellow Pentagon leaders issued a solicitation for the program that many experts said favored a smaller -- and cheaper -- plane. Northrop officials quickly painted the new competition as "unfair," and threatened to opt out.

Months later, Northrop did just that, sending the politically- charged competition into chaos -- and leaving its European collaborator, EADS, without an American dance partner. Carter will be front and center in the deliberations.

In March 2010, Carter spent ample time with lawmakers and in front of the media answering questions about the legitimacy of the Pentagon's KC-X competition, and European charges about U.S. protectionism. "What we did do was make it clear which of the myriad requirements that are in the RfP [request for proposals] are most valued, and exactly how that would be done," he said during a March 2010 appearance on a WUSA-9 "This Week in Defense News," based in Washington D.C. During the same interview, Carter said he "regrets" the protectionism allegations. And he said he is confident he will be able to negotiate a fair price if Boeing is the lone bidder.

Acquisition Reform

As the Pentagon acquisition czar, Carter oversees a weapons-buying system that Obama has placed at the top of his fix-it list. Gates is fond of noting that over 130 studies on the subject have been done over the last few decades "to no avail."

Gates and other Obama defense officials have talked about using more prototyping (meaning contractors competing for a contract would build versions of their proposed weapon systems, which DoD could then judge), independent cost assessments, among other steps.

Since then, however, the Pentagon has produced little on the subject except the 50 decisions contained in the 2010 spending plan. Carter told Defense News in September 2009 that defense observers should not expect to see the Obama administration make the same kinds of changes to the Pentagon procurement system as previous administrations. "Most acquisition reform efforts look at the [beginning phase of a major weapons program]. The most recent acquisition reform legislation did so, and very constructively, but there are these other two pieces, as well," the acquisition chief said.

His approach? "No fiddling with the system, no moving boxes, no changing process is a substitute for good discipline, common sense, and above all, good people involved in the process. Any acquisition reform effort, or proposal that doesn't have those three ingredients probably isn't going to get anywhere" in the Obama Pentagon, he said.

Carter's strategy is best described as one part better management, and one part discipline. Service and Pentagon acquisition officials must ensure steps are being taken, especially early in a major system's life, to lock in specs and build in realistic cost, technology development, and schedule goals. And he says he is trying hard to install the requisite culture change across the military to make those things happen.

Industrial Base

Some Republican lawmakers and defense experts criticized Gates' April 2009 decisions because he did not prioritize the impact on the industrial base. In the September 2009, Carter said he will examine how weapons-program decisions will impact U.S. industry. "I feel industrial base issues are completely legitimate because having the best defense industrial and technology base in the world is not a birthright," Carter said. "It's something we have to earn again and again, and that's particularly true in a globalizing and commercializing world. ... It's not about jobs, it's about certain kinds of jobs - very rare kinds of skills that are not easily replicated in the commercial world and if allowed to erode would be difficult to rebuild."

Driving the criticism of Gates' decisions is the fact the engineering, design and production prowess housed in American defense firms is largely approaching retirement age with a smaller number of younger replacements. That means, Carter said, the Pentagon might be forced to fund some work on special systems like stealthy fighters and bombers, and space systems, just to maintain industry's ability to produce them down the road.

Partly at Carter's behest, sources say, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review places unprecedented emphasis on the importance of the industrial base. But analysts and former officials say more is needed, like a cross-agency national security industrial base strategy. If the Obama administration goes that route, or leaves it to the Pentagon to study industry, Carter will be at the forefront.

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