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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Interview with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter: The DOD and the 'Force of the Future'

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Ash Carter, U.S. Secretary of Defense, answers questions following his speech on cyber security at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on April 23.

In an exclusive interview with college student reporters on Dec. 1, the Dailysat down with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter as he discussed today’s increasingly tech-savvy society, the Department of Defense's (DoD) modes of modernization through Carter's initiative “Force of the Future” and how these changes in the DoD can attract millennials and others to work in DoD.

According to Carter, working with the DoD and working in public service are among the most noble things a person can do. Although he was not planning to work in the DoD for as long as he did, Carter found that once he began, he never wanted to stop.

“I wasn’t much older than you all [the student reporters]," he said. "I was thinking about a completely different type of career, and I was inspired to just give [the DoD] a try. [I] did something that was just supposed to be for a year, a kind of side track from my career, and then I caught the bug. And the bug was that I was working on something very important that can actually make a difference.”

However, this “bug” is getting harder to catch, in Carter’s opinion. Part of the reason lies in the perception of the government as an antiquated, unattractive institution.

“I think that a key is a lot of people in your generation look at us as an industrial-age generation," he said. "Though they’re great, they do great things...they’re kind of old school, they’re like General Motors or Ford or whatever. And that’s not the place I want to be. I want to be at a zippy, startup place.”

Through his initiative “Force of the Future,” Carter hopes to change these conceptions. He noted that this plan includes more flexibility in the profession with what Carter calls “on-ramps” and “off-ramps,” as well as a focus on the tech jobs available through the Defense Digital Service, another development of Force of the Future.

Carter described "on-ramps" as opportunities for people who just want to give the Defense Department a try. He highlighted internship opportunities available for students who want to work with the Defense Digital Service for short stints, such as year-long or project-based positions. "Off-ramps" are for those already in service who are interested in exploring new opportunities, such as pursuing higher education, with which the DoD can sometimes provide support, he said.

“I want students to know about the opportunities that they have,” Carter said. “So when they graduate, or they have a summer off, or they get out of graduate school, or they want to go to graduate school, they know what the opportunities are -- not just in uniform, but on the civilian side.”

The flexibility that the "Force of the Future" initiative aims to provide today's young people with reflects Carter's understanding of the way in which millennials maneuver through the professional world in the 21st century.

“[People from my generation] tend to think of our lives...more as an escalator where you get on at the bottom, and you kind of wait your turn, and you’ll go up the ranks, and eventually you’ll get up at the top,” Carter said. “People don’t think of their lives that way [anymore]. The alternative to thinking about today’s careers is like a jungle gym. You get up by climbing around, trying different things, going over here, seeing what’s going on.”

This mentality also matches that of the “zippy” tech startups and companies with which Carter strives to collaborate. When asked if collaboration with tech companies may be colored with mistrust in light of the Edward Snowden and National Security Agency scandals, Carter responded that he is committed to reaching a level of understanding with tech companies and working toward their shared goal of making a difference.

"I think we in the government are going to have to be flexible, be ingenious, be sensitive in how we approach these questions, because we need the support of the high-tech companies," he said. "Fundamentally, civilizations need technology on [their] side."

Carter explained that all of the recent changes to the DoD serve the main purpose of making the DoD more attractive to young people. Since the DoD is an all-volunteer force, he added, it is important for recruitment purposes to understand the different sectors of society.

Beyond recruiting from tech industries, Carter described the multiple social barriers the DoD must overcome in order to attract a larger pool of people, and its steps toward achieving openness.

“I can’t afford to have parts of the population I’m unable to reach...whether they’re economically disadvantaged [or] races that have historically been underrepresented in the military. It’s why we’re glad to see ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ go," he said. "[The elimination of that policy] gave us access to a talent pool. It’s why we’ve progressively been opening military specialties to women now, and it’s because it’s an all-volunteer force; I gotta tap into the entire population.”

By creating a more welcoming and modernized way of working with the DoD, Carter hopes to attract more people to the public service “bug” that he caught when he was younger.

“Obviously, if I didn’t believe in public service, I would have never been a part of this institution, which I have [been] for a long time, and if I didn’t believe in...attracting new talent and new people to that mission...I wouldn’t have been here either,” Carter said.