INSIDE THE FIVE-SIDED BOX

The Pentagon serves as headquarters to the single largest institution in America: The Department of Defense. The D.O.D. employs millions of people. It owns and operates more real estate, and spends more money, than any other entity. It manages the world's largest and most complex information network and performs more scientific research by far than any other institution. Yet to most people, the dealings of the D.O.D are a mystery and the Pentagon nothing more than an opaque five-sided box that they regard with a mixture of awe and suspicion.

Inside the Five-Sided Box demystifies the Pentagon and lays bare the inner workings of the D.O.D. in order to shed light on all that happens inside one of the nation's most iconic buildings and most closely guarded institutions. Carter's 36 years of D.O.D. leadership cover every strategic era from the Cold War through the fall of the Berlin Wall, both Iraq wars, 9/11, Afghanistan, and humanitarian missions at home and abroad. Drawing on these experiences and sharing real-life stories (many of which have never been told), Carter explores the global context explaining why the US has a $600 billion defense budget as the world's leading peacekeeper, along with the major strategic transition from the post-9/11 era of counterterrorism to a new era of great-power rivalry.

Ash Carter currently serves as the Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School. He also is an innovation fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most recently, Carter served as the 25th Secretary of Defense under President Obama. He has been awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal-- the department's highest civilian honor-- on five separate occasions, and he twice received the Joint Distinguished Service Medal from the Chairman and Joint Chiefs of Staff. Secretary Carter earned his bachelor's degrees in physics and in medieval history at Yale University, where he was also awarded Phi Beta Kappa; and he received his doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.