Former Secretary of Defense Takes Readers ‘Inside’ Pentagon

As secretary of defense, Ash Carter urged the Pentagon to “think outside” of its “five-sided box.” Now, his new memoir offers a rare glance inside that five-sided box, recalling Carter’s decades of work at the Department of Defense. It offers a “user’s guide” to the $700 billion defense budget, a consideration of global trouble spots and an analysis of how the U.S. military could maintain its technological edge. Technology was a focus of Carter’s career; in 2016, he helped create the “Hack the Pentagon” program that offered payment for finding software bugs in Defense Department websites. Carter joins us to discuss America’s security challenges and his book “Inside The Five-Sided Box.”