When people talk about the final years of the Obama administration, they usually focus on the Iran Deal or the Paris Agreement. But tucked away in the E-Ring of the Pentagon, a theoretical physicist named Ash Carter was quietly trying to drag the Department of Defense into the 21st century.
He was the Obama secretary of defense 2015 17, and honestly, he wasn't your typical "war secretary."
Ash Carter didn't come up through the ranks of the military or the typical political donor pipeline. He was a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford. Imagine that. A guy who spent his early career studying quarks and "charmed" particles was suddenly in charge of the most powerful military on the planet. He took over from Chuck Hagel in February 2015 at a moment when the world was basically on fire.
ISIS was expanding. Russia was getting aggressive in Ukraine. China was building islands in the South China Sea.
Carter had a massive job. Most people remember his tenure for the social changes he pushed through, but his real legacy is a lot more technical—and a lot more controversial—than just the headlines.
The Man Who Opened Every Door
If you ask a veteran what they remember about the Obama secretary of defense 2015 17, they’ll probably mention December 2015. That’s when Carter made the call to open every single military role to women.
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No exceptions.
This wasn't just a political move; it was a total overhaul. Before this, about 10% of positions—roughly 220,000 jobs—were closed to women. We’re talking infantry, armor, and elite special operations like the Navy SEALs and Army Rangers.
The Marine Corps actually fought him on it. They wanted an exemption. They argued that mixed-gender units weren't as effective in certain high-intensity combat roles. Carter listened, looked at the data, and basically said, "No."
He believed that the "Force of the Future" (a phrase he used constantly) needed to be about talent, not gender. If you can meet the standard, you get the job. It was that simple to him. A few months later, in 2016, he also ended the ban on transgender individuals serving openly. For a building as traditional as the Pentagon, these were seismic shifts.
Shifting the Fight Against ISIS
When Carter arrived, the campaign against ISIS—Operation Inherent Resolve—was sort of idling. Critics were calling it a "stalemate." Carter changed the vibe.
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He didn't want to "Americanize" the war by putting tens of thousands of U.S. boots on the ground. Instead, he pushed for an "accelerant" strategy. He started sending in more special operations forces to advise local groups and increased the air campaign significantly.
He was obsessed with "lasting defeat." Basically, if the U.S. did all the fighting, ISIS would just come back the second we left. By making the local Iraqis and Syrians do the heavy lifting with American tech and air support, he hoped the victory would actually stick. It was during his watch that the momentum really shifted, leading to the eventual collapse of the caliphate’s major strongholds like Ramadi and the beginning of the end for Mosul.
Thinking Outside the Five-Sided Box
One of Carter’s most famous quirks was his hatred of "Pentagon-think." He called it the "five-sided box."
Because he was a scientist, he realized the military was losing its edge in technology. While the Pentagon was stuck in twenty-year procurement cycles, Silicon Valley was moving in weeks.
So, he did something weird. He opened "satellite offices" for the Pentagon in tech hubs like Silicon Valley, Boston, and Austin. He called it DIUx (Defense Innovation Unit Experimental).
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He wanted the military to buy tech like a startup. He brought in guys from Google and Amazon to help fix the military's terrible software. Some of the old guard in DC hated this. They thought he was spending too much time "bro-ing out" in California instead of focusing on traditional defense. But Carter knew that the next war wouldn't just be about who had the biggest tank; it would be about who had the best AI and cyber defenses.
Why He Still Matters Today
Ash Carter passed away in 2022, but if you look at the military today, his fingerprints are everywhere. The way the U.S. supports Ukraine right now—using high-tech "off-the-shelf" commercial drones and satellite data mixed with local fighting forces—is exactly the kind of "distributed" warfare Carter championed.
He wasn't perfect. His "Force of the Future" initiatives faced massive pushback from Congress, and some of his personnel reforms were watered down before they even launched. But he was a rare leader who understood that the military is a human organization that needs to evolve.
Actionable Insights from the Carter Era
If you’re looking at how to apply his leadership style to business or life, here are a few things to take away:
- Standard over Stereotype: When Carter opened combat roles, he didn't lower standards; he just removed the gender barrier. Keep your standards high, but make sure you aren't ignoring talent because of "how it's always been done."
- Speed is a Weapon: DIUx was born because the Pentagon was too slow. In any field, if your "procurement" of new ideas is slower than the market, you're already losing.
- Enable, Don't Replace: Whether it's a team at work or a foreign ally, the goal is to make them capable of winning on their own. If you do the work for them, you’re just creating a dependency.
The Obama secretary of defense 2015 17 years were a bridge between the old "Global War on Terror" era and the high-tech, great-power competition we're in now. Ash Carter was the guy who built that bridge.
Next Steps for Deep Research:
To get a better sense of how these policies changed the ground game, look into the specific history of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and how it transitioned from "Experimental" under Carter to a permanent, vital part of the DoD today. You can also read Carter’s 2019 memoir, Inside the Five-Sided Box, which goes into the granular detail of his battles with the military bureaucracy.