Bill Perry was the 19th US Secretary of Defense, serving under Bill Clinton. Prior to this role, Secretary Perry was also Deputy Secretary of Defense and Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, as well as the founder of a Silicon Valley electronics firm. Currently, Secretary Perry is a professor at Stanford, and advocates for the elimination of nuclear weapons through the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the William J. Perry Project.

In this video, teaching assistant Michael Piech interviews Secretary Perry on his experiences attempting to reduce the size of the military in the post-Cold War era, as well as his attempts to reform the Defense acquisitions process, and open up the supply-chain to smaller firms and commercial “off-the-shelf” sources, as opposed to defense contractors. Further, Secretary Perry shares his outlook on the contemporary political landscape, outlining some of the major threats to the national security of the U.S.