Ashton Carter, Obama’s new secretary of defense, will face some tough decisions about how to protect America’s security abroad: about what to do about ISIS; about Russia and Ukraine; about China and its bullying of Asian neighbors in the East and South China Seas; about defense budgets that are shrinking through sequestration — and about shrinking them without sequestration.
One decision he will make may affect America’s security not now but 20 or even 30 years from now. It’s about who will replace the legendary Andy Marshall as head of the Office of Net Assessments, or the ONA, at the Pentagon. The office is small, its budget by Pentagon standards quite tiny (barely $10 million a year). But by providing detailed and quantified assessments of future challenges and threats to America’s security, Marshall and his team of assistants and a larger team of consultants have been guiding the Pentagon’s forward thinking under every president since Richard Nixon.
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