Ash Carter: “If confirmed, I would, in close consultation with our senior military leaders, provide the President with my best…”

"Up-or-out" isn't broken--in fact, it's an essential and highly successful system--but it's also not perfect.

The international community, United Nations Security Council and especially the other six-party powers must hold North Korea accountable for this latest act and heighten the pressure on North Korea.

I can't support, and won't support, is anything that moves towards instability.

We need Congress to come together around providing normal, stable, responsible budgets, because the lack of stability represents one of the single biggest strategic risks to our enterprise at DOD.