U.S. military planners today face a daunting task of sustaining a robust defense posture against a growing array of threats with declining budgets. Fortunately, opportunities exist to improve our military posture by, among other things, reducing the high rate of growth in the Pentagon's personnel accounts, closing excess bases, and retiring weapon systems that are past their useful service lives or of marginal value in addressing existing and emerging security challenges. Such actions, while strategically sound, have proven politically difficult to undertake. Yet failure to make tough political choices like these regarding our defense budget priorities risks fielding a military that is improperly calibrated for achieving strategic objectives.
On May 1, 2014, CSBA hosted a congressional event where Rep. Adam Smith, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee and Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow and Director of Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) offered a roadmap for prioritizing the Pentagon’s budget.