- published: 12 Apr 2016
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Ashton Baldwin Carter (born September 14, 1954) is a United States national security professional serving as the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense. Prior to that, He served as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics (AT&L) for President Barack Obama. He is currently on leave from his post as Co-Director (with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry) of the Preventive Defense Project, a research collaboration of Harvard and Stanford universities. He is also on leave from the International Relations, Security, and Science faculty at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is a member of the guiding coalition of the Project on National Security Reform. On August 2, 2011, President Obama nominated Carter to be the new Deputy Secretary of Defense, and on September 23, 2011 the United States Senate confirmed him by unanimous consent. He assumed his office as Deputy Secretary of Defense on October 6, 2011.
Carter served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy in the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 1996. He was nominated to his current post on March 18, 2009. Dr Carter served as a member of the Defense Science Board from 1991–1993 and 1997–2001, the Defense Policy Board from 1997–2001, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's International Security Advisory Board from 2006-2008. In 1997, Dr. Carter co-chaired the Catastrophic Terrorism Study Group with former CIA Director John M. Deutch, which urged greater attention to terrorism. From 1998 to 2000, he was deputy to William J. Perry in the North Korea Policy Review and traveled with him to Pyongyang. In 2001-2002, he served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism and advised on the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.