Belfer Center Director Ash Carter fondly remembers former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown who died January 4 at the age of 91. Harold Brown, Carter writes, "represented rigor and truth in the grave matter of protecting America, civility and decency in conduct, and adherence to long-standing bipartisan security commitments around the world. These commitments have characterized the department to this day, which gives me great faith in the future." 

Belfer Center experts comment on the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki.

The last time that America almost risked a pre-emptive strike on North Korea the gamble offered a spectacular pay-off. Ashton Carter, a leading architect of that plan, recalls that his scheme for bombing the Yongbyon nuclear facility in 1994 assumed that in one or two days the entirety of the regime’s nuclear programme could be levelled and entombed in rubble. Mr Carter, who went on to become defence secretary in the Obama administration, now thinks that an American first strike would only put “a significant dent” in North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear devices and bombmaking sites. “The difference today is that the North Koreans are very good at hiding, burying and moving around their nuclear infrastructure,” says Mr Carter, now at Harvard University.

Andrew Poulin, President of the Center for International Maritime Security, interviews Belfer Center Director Ash Carter.

President Barack Obama announced Monday that he has nominated Dr. Ashton B. Carter to serve as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

An interview with Dr. Ashton B. Carter; Carter discusses the prospects for an American National Missile Defense system.