Ashton B. Carter Quotes

The Pentagon has a long tradition of dialing up the threat to get more dollars at budget time.

Just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God’s children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and be given a chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

… war is a matter not so much of arms as of money

In Afghanistan and Iraq [the wars], the Pentagon saw little value in making acquisitions that would be irrelevant by the time they were ready.

In a democracy you get the army that the people are willing to pay for.

In peace and war it's always money.

[The] up-and-down pattern of [defense] spending over the last 18 years averages out to below zero percent real growth. In other words, if defense spending had followed a path of zero percent real growth, the U.S. probably could have obtained more defense for its dollar.

The military always asks for more [appropriations] than it gets.

Show me your budget and I’ll describe your strategy.

Contrary to … conventional wisdom, the consequence of past U. S. Defense cuts were not bad …. austerity can be useful in forcing Washington to think strategically, something it rarely does when times are flush.

Austerity [in the Defense Department] meant that risks had to be managed, not eliminated.

The officials responsible for acquisitions [at the Pentagon] are loathe to take risks, since they can be held personally accountable if something goes wrong.

If we can afford tremendous sums of money to win the war, we can afford to invest whatever amount it takes to win the peace

Foreign policy debates are frequently segregated from domestic policy ones, so commentators who propose increasing the defense budget or sending more foreign aid are seldom asked to explain which domestic programs they’d cut or which taxes they’d raise, in order to find the money.

Admirals and Generals always want more ships and more weapons and they take the arguments where they can find them.

The administration has a disturbing pattern of behavior when it comes to budgeting not only for the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also for military requirements not directly related to these conflicts.

Its going to be a squeeze, but we have got to put our men and women in uniform ahead of everything else. We've got to be treating our reservists fairly before we move on to other procurements.

When you cut a half-a-trillion dollars from the defense budget, it affects almost every area in the defense budget.

The United States should be devoting a larger percentage of its vast resources to making the world safe for capitalism and democracy ... the proper role of an imperial America is to establish these institutions where they are lacking, if necessary ... by military force. Imposing democracy on all the world's "rogue states" would not push the U. S. Defense budget much above 5 percent of GDP... establishing the rule of law in such countries would pay a long run dividend as their trade revised and expanded.

We disarm ourselves by making weapons so expensive.

While our superpower military is stunningly effective, it is also stunningly expensive.

The only way to make budget cuts is to bring down force structure.

As Secretary of Defense my job would be much easier if I didn't have to put up with [budget] cuts.

[Discussing specific weapons systems:] I voted for them when I was in Congress. Now that I'm secretary [of defense] I have to figure out a way to pay for them.

We can always find money for what the military wants.