An Extraordinary Pentagon ‘Bull Session’ Over ISIS

4 minute read

College, where new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has spent as much time as at the Pentagon, loves bull sessions. That’s just what Carter did Monday, summoning U.S. military and diplomatic brainpower to an unusual closed-door session in Kuwait where some of America’s finest Middle East minds gathered to debate how to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS).

Sure, the more than two dozen attendees sat at a government-issue T-shaped table, complete with their names on placards, instead of sitting cross-legged on the floor. But, at the start of his second week on the job, Carter made clear he is as interested in listening as he is in talking. “This is team America,” he declared, before reporters were ushered out of the room.

At the end of the six-hour session, Carter declared ISIS “hardly invincible,” and gave no hint of any major change in U.S. policy, despite calls from some congressional Republicans for more robust military action. “Lasting defeat of this brutal group,” Carter said, “can and will be accomplished.”

No revamped war plan was expected to surface during the session, although Carter said the U.S. needs to step up its social-media duel with ISIS, and that certain unnamed allies need to do more. Rather, aides said, Carter was seeking to dive deeply into the current U.S. strategy, understand its logic and see if it can be improved.

While such sessions often happen without public notice in Washington, convening one abroad — and publicly detailing its purpose and attendees — marks a shift in how the Pentagon is conducting business under its new chief.

Those at the session included Army General Lloyd Austin, who as head of U.S. Central Command, oversees the anti-ISIS campaign, and Air Force General Philip Breedlove, NATO’s military chief. Diplomats attending included retired Marine general John Allen, now the White House’s envoy responsible for ISIS, and U.S. ambassadors in the region.

The Pentagon instructed those attending to leave their PowerPoint presentations at home and be ready to face questions from Carter. These kinds of sessions — especially when senior officials are visiting from the capital — often turn into subordinates’ show-and-tell rather than tough questions with frank answers. “We had an incisive, candid, wide-ranging discussion—there were no briefings,” Carter said afterward. “It was the sharing of experience and ideas and expertise and it made me very proud of the American team here in this region.”

Carter, a physicist by training, has spent much of his career lecturing on college campuses, including at Harvard, Oxford and Stanford. Between academic gigs, he also has served tours inside the Pentagon, including as deputy defense secretary from 2011 to 2013.

Carter plainly wants the war on ISIS to end differently than the wars the U.S. launched in Afghanistan (in 2001) and Iraq (in 2003), where battlefield successes turned into nation-building quagmires. “If we are to have a defeat of [ISIS] … it needs to be a lasting defeat,” he told U.S. troops at Kuwait’s Camp Arifjan before Monday’s session began. “What we discuss here, and what I learn here, will be important to me as I formulate our own direction in this campaign and as I help the President to lead it.”

Assuming Carter heard something that could help turn the tide against ISIS, getting the White House to listen to his advice could prove challenging. President Obama’s first two defense chiefs, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, made no secret of their disdain for White House interference in Pentagon planning, and Pentagon officials cited such micromanagement as a problem during Chuck Hagel’s recently concluded tenure.

See Air Force One's Transformation Over 70 Years

A view of Air Force One on the runway.
After the original Air Force One, a C-87A Liberator Express nicknamed Guess Where II, was deemed unsafe for presidential use, this Douglas C-54 Skymaster, nicknamed Sacred Cow was introduced for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945. It was equipped with a radio telephone, sleeping area, and elevator for President Roosevelt's wheelchair. Thomas D. McAvoy—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Faded color photograph of the Independence in flight.Date: ca. 1947 The Independence
In 1947, Sacred Cow was replaced with Independence by President Truman, who named it after his hometown. The Douglas DC-6 Liftmaster's nose was painted as a bald eagle.Truman Presidential Library
President Dwight Eisenhower’s private plane
President Eisenhower added Columbine II, a Lockheed C-121 Super Constellation, to the Presidential fleet in 1953.William J. Smith—AP
British Royalty, Royal Tour of the United States, pic: October 1957, Washington, USA, HM, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh pictured alongside US, President Dwight Eisenhower at the airport welcome
Columbine III, and two smaller Aero Commanders, joined Eisenhower's Presidential planes. Popperfoto/Getty Images
Air Force One
Special Air Mission 26000, a Boeing 707, went into presidential service under the Kennedy administration. SAM 26000 stayed in service through Bill Clinton's administration until 1998. Wally Nelson—AP
AIR FORCE ONE REAGAN
Although SAM 26000 remained in service throughout the 1990s, it was replaced as the primary executive aircraft by SAM 27000, the same model aircraft, in 1972. Pictured here is President Ronal Reagan on SAM 27000.TSGT Michael J. Haggerty—AP
Barack Obama,
In 1990, SAM 28000, a Boeing 747 was introduced to the Presidential fleet.Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP
Airplane Takeoffs And Landings At Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
SAM 29000, also a Boeing 747, remains President Obama's primary transport aircraft.Raymond Boyd—Getty Images
This Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental jetliner, the first VIP-configured aircraft, rolls out for an undisclosed customer for takeoff from Paine Field in Everett, Washington
In January, 2015, it was announced that a Boeing 747-8 will take over as the newest member of the Presidential Fleet known as Air Force One.Anthony Bolante—Reuters

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