Ted Gup is the author of several nonfiction books, and has contributed articles to the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, NPR, National Geographic and others. He lives in Boston where he teaches at Boston College and Emerson.

A mere three months in office, Ash Carter is quickly establishing himself as the scold of Washington. His main target: the Iraqis. On Wednesday, the defense secretary once again denigrated Iraqi troops, saying a “combination of disunity, deserters, and so-called ‘ghost soldiers’—who are paid on the books but don’t show up or don’t exist—has greatly diminished their capacity.” Carter also told the House Armed Services Committee that efforts to recruit Iraqis against the Islamic State had thus far produced dismal results—a mere 7,000 recruits of the 24,000 hoped for. Three weeks earlier, following the fall of Ramadi, Carter spoke disdainfully on Sunday television of the Iraqi military’s performance in the field—how they cut and ran and showed “no will to fight.”

It remains to be seen whether Carter’s bluntness will inspire the Iraqis to action—or only further alienate a people whose culture does not react well to public shame, not to mention slurs on their manhood. But no one who knows him well should be surprised by Carter’s apparent arrogance, which appears to be unmitigated by any concept of diplomacy—least of all me.


Because Carter scolded me once. I hope the Iraqis get over it sooner than I did.

In the fall of 2003, when he was on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy School, and I was a fellow of the school’s Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy, I tried to audit his course in national security. I simply wanted to listen. Carter was a formidable figure, an Oxford-educated physicist and Rhodes scholar, a summa cum laude grad of Yale and a rising star at the Pentagon who was already displaying the skills that would make him chief operating officer. He was the ultimate budget and acquisitions guy. A technocrat maybe, but a brilliant one.

The first day of class I took my place in the classroom—there were more than a few empty seats. The assistant nodded in my direction and smiled. Then Carter entered the room. He immediately fixed his gaze on me, perhaps because I was 53 at the time and old enough to have fathered some of those around me. He walked directly over to me and demanded—not asked—but demanded to know who I was. I attempted to explain that I was a fellow, that I had cleared my attendance with his assistant, and that—well, that was as far as I got.

I do not remember his exact words, but they were to the effect that I was to clear out. I do remember his edict was followed with an emphatic “Now!” It was a stinging rebuke. I gathered my papers and exited the room, humiliated. (In high school I had once been ejected from algebra for doodling in class, but this was somehow even more degrading.)

That afternoon I shared the experience with some staffers at the Kennedy School. They were hardly surprised. Tact was not known to be Carter’s strong suit. His imperious manner was familiar to many. As a professor of some 30 years myself, I did not begrudge him the right to ask me to leave. It was his rudeness—his bullying—that was so off-putting.

I am a former staff writer for both the Washington Post and Time, so I am accustomed to the sometimes-brusque ways of those in power. But what troubled me about the encounter was Carter’s volatility and intemperance. And my introduction to him apparently mirrored the experiences of others in Washington. Jofi Joseph, a former National Security Council staffer once tweeted of Carter, “In a town full of egos, Ash Carter may have one of the largest.” Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute said of him: “He’s a prickly personality, he’s not exactly the world’s greatest communicator, he makes Chuck Hagel look like Winston Churchill.”

And Carter’s prickliness goes way back. At age 11, he was fired from a job at a Philadelphia car wash for mouthing off to the owner, a fact that he seems to take pride in, including it in his faculty profile. (A Pentagon spokesperson said he had no comment on Carter's personality.)

Carter is not the first Pentagon chief, of course, to suffer from chronic arrogance. Nor is that necessarily the worst thing in the world. To some people, running a half-trillion-dollar organization peopled with uber-male egos requires more than a little self-confidence. And Carter's impolitic words to the Iraqis have won him fans among the U.S. military brass who are tired of carrying the weight for a foreign army. Indeed, even a quick Google search of “irascible” and "Secretary of Defense” (and “Secretary of War” as the office was known before 1949) might suggest that being thin-skinned and gruff are prerequisites of office. There’s “the irascible Donald Rumsfeld (1975-1977),” “the irascible Dick Cheney (1989-1993),” and, before them, the “dour and irascible Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, (1949-1950)” the “irascible Russell Alger (1897-1899)” and the “irascible John C. Calhoun (1817-1825).”

In wartime, arrogance can even be an asset. After Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt famously elevated the junior but tough-minded Ernest King to chief of naval operations because, King supposedly once said, when the shooting starts they have to send for the “sons of bitches.” Nowhere was this truer than in the case of Abraham Lincoln’s second secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton (1862-1868). The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library lists his many attributes, including “arrogant, domineering, hot tempered, excitable, opinionated, organized, efficient, impulsive, workaholic, driven, combative…abrasive, brusque, dyspeptic, despotic, defiant ….” (By such measure, Ash Carter could run a charm school.)

Stanton once said of his commander in chief, Lincoln, that he was a “damned fool.” His characterization was repeated to Lincoln himself, who responded, “If Stanton said I was a damned fool, then I must be one, for he is nearly always right, and generally says what he means.” Lincoln had his own name for Stanton — “Mars,” the Roman god of war.

Yet arrogance—and an unwillingness to bend one’s views—has also been one of the great pitfalls of the office. Rumsfeld, whose views on maintaining a “small footprint” in Iraq and Afghanistan profoundly constrained American efforts in those wars, is only the most recent baleful example. Recall Robert McNamara, one of the “best and the brightest” excoriated by journalist David Halberstam; their “brilliance and hubris” made them unwilling to second-guess their policies.

McNamara is also a stark reminder of the difference between brilliance and judgment. But history alone will not guide us to a conclusion about Carter’s prospects at the Pentagon—whether on the historical spectrum his legacy will be closer to a Stanton or to a McNamara. The former’s candor was prized, the latter’s arrogance seen as blinding. What is known is that Carter has assumed an office whose demands have evolved over the years into something more complicated and nuanced than even the God of War himself could have managed.

Carter would be the first to acknowledge the virtues of a more holistic approach to world affairs–the so-called “smart power”—the importance of working with the State Department, and the complex realities of the challenges he faces. Brute force alone will not ultimately resolve the problems presented by ISIS, North Korea, Iran, China or Russia. In each theater of tension, diplomacy, coalition-building and the persuasive arts will be vital. (Not to mention the delicate diplomacy he will have to muster in dealing with Congress.)

Motivating the Iraqis to fight, in other words, is nothing at all like mobilizing an entire nation for war, as Edwin Stanton did.

Now, testiness in the classroom is one thing. On the international stage it is something else entirely. In 2006, as an academic, Carter advocated a pre-emptive strike on North Korea’s missile program, though his defenders later argued his position was more nuanced. So yes, when I heard he had been nominated to be secretary of defense—reportedly choices one and two dropped out of the running, clearing the way for Carter—I instantly feared that his abrasive and shoot-from-the-lip style would create problems. I did not have long to wait.

Now the professor-turned-secretary has spoken his mind on the subject of Iraqi troops, alienating a skittish ally, emboldening an enemy and creating a dust-up at home. In Washington, where policy and personality are often indistinguishable, Ash Carter has announced his arrival. And this time, we all have a front-row seat. I hope the Iraqis fare better than I did.