U.S. President Barack Obama will nominate former Pentagon official Ashton Carter as U.S. defense secretary, reports CNN.

Carter is a former deputy secretary at the Department of Defense and has long been thought of as a leading candidate to succeed Chuck Hagel, who under pressure announced his resignation last week .

David Sedney, who served under Obama from 2009-2013 as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, stressed that Hagel’s replacement “will be in a difficult position," Washington Times reports.

Carter holds a bachelor's degrees in physics and medieval history from Yale and a doctorate in theoretical physics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes scholar, according to the Pentagon website. He was the No. 2 official at the Pentagon from October 2011 to December 2013. Previously, he was the Pentagon's chief arms buyer. Carter also served as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy under President Bill Clinton.

Michael O'Hanlon, a defense industry analyst at the Brookings Institution, estimated that Carter’s "career has sort of prepared him perfectly for this kind of a moment.

"On paper and in terms of his resume and preparation you probably couldn't do much better," he explained.

According to Reuters, a spokeswoman for Carter had no immediate comment on the appointment.

Aside from Carter, there have been a few names mentioned as a possible replacement for Hagel. Other candidates included former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig and Kurt Campbell, a former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs who now heads the Asia Group, a strategy and capitol advisory group.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, a former general counsel at the Pentagon who had been actively considered as replacement for Hagel, recently took himself out of consideration for the job.

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