Center for a New American Security

Senior Fellow and Director of the Military, Veterans and Society Program

Phillip Carter is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Military, Veterans and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). His research focuses on issues facing veterans and military personnel, force structure and readiness issues, and civil-military relations.

Mr. Carter is recognized as one of the leading voices of the Iraq and Afghanistan generation of veterans. His writing on national security and veterans issues has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate and the Washington Monthly, as well as the INTEL DUMP blog which he ran from 2002-2008.

In 2007, he helped stand up the Obama campaign’s veterans policy committee; he later joined the campaign in 2008 as its national veterans director, responsible for all aspects of outreach, policy and political engagement with the veterans community. In 2009, Mr. Carter served as a political appointee in the Obama administration, responsible for detainee policy at the Department of Defense.

He most recently served as Chief Operating Officer for Caerus Associates, a strategy and design firm focused on stability and development in conflict-affected spaces. Prior to joining Caerus, Mr. Carter practiced law with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP. His practice focused government contracts and national security issues, including issues arising for contractors during performance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the past several years, he also participated in several landmark national security cases, co-authoring or authoring briefs in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (relating to military commissions at Guantanamo Bay), FAIR vs. Rumsfeld (relating to military recruiting on university campuses) and Al-Aulaqi v. Obama (a challenge to U.S. targeting of al Qaeda personnel in Yemen).

Previously, Mr. Carter served nine years as an Army military police and civil affairs officer, including a year in Iraq where he advised the provincial police, judiciary and prisons in Iraq’s Diyala province.

In addition to his work for Caerus and CNAS, Mr. Carter currently serves on the board of directors for the Army Heritage Foundation in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the editorial board of the Journal for National Security Law & Policy and the veterans advisory council for the Jericho Project, a non-profit organization in New York devoted to ending homelessness through innovative supportive housing programs.