(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) US Vice President Joe Biden swore in former Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to his new position as the 25th Secretary of Defense, the top Pentagon post.
"This is a guy who fits the job description... you are a genuine scholar of strategic military affairs and nuclear weapons policy, a profoundly capable manager demonstrated time and again, reflected in a near unanimous Senate vote," affirmed Biden Carter served as Deputy from 2011 to 2013, in which he oversaw the department's annual budget and over three million civilian and military personnel. In 2009 to 2011 he served as Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and was responsible for the Pentagon's procurement reform and innovation agenda. He led the development and production of mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles and other acquisitions. In 1993 to 1996 Carter was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy where he worked with strategic affairs, nuclear weapons policy, and the Nunn-Lugar program that removed nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus.
Carter holds a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford University and has written 11 books on the subject. Before working in government he was a visiting fellow at Stanford's University's Hoover Institution. He has also served as a Senior Partner of Global Technology Partners focused on advising major investment firms in technology, and an advisor on global affairs to Goldman Sachs. At Harvard University, he was also a Professor of Science and International Affairs and Chair of the International and Global Affairs.
In regards to the Middle East, Carter recently told a Senate panel, "I think we have two immediate, substantial dangers - one is ISIL, and one is Iran." He further went on to call Iran's role a "serious complication" and in order for the US to defend itself it needs defense missiles, "capable and large enough in size to deal with both the prospective Iranian threat and the also very real North Korean threat." Carter's areas of oversight will be unlike those before him over the last 10 years now that the US has greatly reduced its forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. A new form of needed defense has appeared in the realm of cyber security, an area of Carter has voiced that the federal government should be responsible for.
While at the swearing in ceremony on Tuesday, Carter told Biden, "To me, this is the highest honor".
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