News

Surrounded: How the U.S. Is Encircling China with Military Bases

August 20, 2013 Foreign Policy

The refurbished airfields also hearken back to the Cold War era, when American units were constantly rotated in and out of Europe to keep the Soviets at bay. To counter a new foe, the Air Force will continuously deploy units based in the United States and the northern Pacific to a string of airfields in Southeast Asia.

Reshaping for Tomorrow

August 20, 2013 Air Force Magazine

The US military services need to take advantage of the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review to carve out new, forward-looking missions or risk becoming simply smaller—and increasingly irrelevant—versions of themselves, according to Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments Senior Fellow Mark Gunzinger.

China Precision Strike

August 15, 2013 Washington Times

China's military is building conventional precision-guided missiles in an effort to become Asia's "hegemon" and force the U.S. military to operate thousands of miles from China's coasts, according to a study made public this week.

The Globalization of Precision Strike

August 13, 2013 The Diplomat

Barry Watts has a new report published by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments that traces the evolution of precision strike capabilities. Watts notes that contrary to estimates in the 1990s, “the principal fact about precision strike remains that over the last two decades the United States alone has been able to bring reconnaissance strike to bear in distant theaters around the globe.” He discusses some of the reasons for this, before warning that “there is reason to anticipate that in the years ahead at least some other nations—including China, Russia, and Iran—will endeavor to either begin catching up with or erode the U.S. lead in reconnaissance strike.” Watts also speculates that far more states and even non-state actors like Hezbollah and al-Qaeda could acquire short-range precision guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles (G-RAMM)/.../

Budget Pressures Seen as Biggest Risk to Long Range Bomber Program

August 13, 2013 National Defense Magazine

The Air Force is setting out to do something it hasn’t done in more than two decades: acquire a heavy bomber. The aspiration is to have an operational long range strike bomber in the air by the mid-2020s.To do so, the service will have to avoid some of the pitfalls of the past, and keep funding flowing to the program despite budget pressures, analysts said/.../

Briefs

Understanding NATO’s Concept for Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area

May 20, 2024 Katherine Kjellström Elgin, Sean Monaghan, Sara Bjerg Moller

NATO, the largest and most powerful military alliance in history, turned seventy-five in April. In July, the leaders of NATO will return to the city where its founding document, the Washington Treaty, was signed in 1949. Most people have heard of NATO. Fewer know its most important document is the Strategic Concept, which is updated every decade or so, and sets the Alliance’s strategy. An even smaller group know about NATO’s “Concept for Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area.”

Studies

More of the Same? The Future of the Russian Military And Its Ability to Change

March 18, 2024 Katherine Kjellström Elgin

Assessing the type of threat that Russia is likely to pose in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine is a critical challenge for the United States and its allies. What will the Russian military look like in the future? Some argue that the Russian military will remain a significant threat – and perhaps become a very different and even more serious one. This argument holds that the Russian military will reconstitute in a relatively short time frame and may reform according to lessons learned during the war in Ukraine. Others argue that the Russian military will pose a far less formidable conventional threat going forward. Not only has the war against Ukraine exposed fundamental weaknesses in the Russian military, the argument goes, but Moscow’s ability to address those weaknesses will be limited by available manpower, sanctions, and export controls.

Briefs

2023 Annual Report

January 30, 2024

For nearly three decades, CSBA has provided consistent, high-quality, and innovative research on defense strategy, budgets, and the security environment.

Briefs

An Ongoing and Necessary Renaissance: NATO’s Nuclear Posture

January 25, 2024 Eric Edelman, Franklin C. Miller

President Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling while the war in Ukraine has raged, along with lurid nuclear threats by Russian officials and propagandists, have once again focused attention on NATO’s nuclear mission. As the alliance approaches a summit in Washington later this summer, it is an appropriate time to review its nuclear posture.

Studies

Strengthening the Phalanx: Layered, Comprehensive, and Distributed Air and Missile Defense in the Indo-Pacific

January 17, 2024 Carl Rehberg, Herbert Kemp

One of the most critical operational challenges the United States is likely to confront in a future conflict, particularly in the Indo-Pacific theater, is the threat of massed precision-guided air and missile attacks on overseas ports, bases, and other vital facilities. DoD has invested significant resources to defend against ballistic missile attacks on the United States, as well as its forward bases and forward-operating forces. However, it cannot still defeat large numbers of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial systems.

Studies

Inconsistent Congress: Analysis of the 2024 Defense Budget Request

October 17, 2023 Travis Sharp

After increasing the Department of Defense (DoD) budget in real terms during seven of the past eight fiscal years, Congress has now pivoted toward restraining spending by passing the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. Approved in early June as part of the debt ceiling deal, the law imposes a liberating limit on defense. It unshackles defense spending from parity with nondefense spending but still caps military budgets at or near current spending levels for the next two fiscal years while brandishing the threat of a lowered defense cap and potential sequestration if Congress delays in passing full-year appropriations for any budget account.

More of the Same? The Future of the Russian Military And Its Ability to Change

Strengthening the Phalanx: Layered, Comprehensive, and Distributed Air and Missile Defense in the Indo-Pacific

Inconsistent Congress: Analysis of the 2024 Defense Budget Request

Evaluate Like We Operate: Why DOD Should Evaluate Weapons Systems as Networked Force Packages, Not Individual Platforms

Extending Deterrence by Detection: The Case for Integrating Unmanned Aircraft Systems Into the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness

Beyond Precision: Maintaining America’s Strike Advantage in Great Power Conflict

The Decisive Decade: United States–China Competition in Defense Innovation and Defense Industrial Policy in and Beyond the 2020s

Speeding Toward Instability? Hypersonic Weapons and the Risks of Nuclear Use

Air Power Metamorphosis: Rethinking Air Force Combat Force Modernization

Innovating for Great Power Competition: An Examination of Service and Joint Innovation Efforts

2023 Annual Report

Featured Event

Report Release Webinar: Strengthening the Phalanx: Layered, Comprehensive, and Distributed Air and Missile Defense in the Indo-Pacific

Surrounded: How the U.S. Is Encircling China with Military Bases

Reshaping for Tomorrow

China Precision Strike

Failure to Launch: Military Space Programs in Search of New Directions

The Globalization of Precision Strike

Budget Pressures Seen as Biggest Risk to Long Range Bomber Program

Latest Publications

Understanding NATO’s Concept for Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area

More of the Same? The Future of the Russian Military And Its Ability to Change

2023 Annual Report

An Ongoing and Necessary Renaissance: NATO’s Nuclear Posture

Strengthening the Phalanx: Layered, Comprehensive, and Distributed Air and Missile Defense in the Indo-Pacific

Inconsistent Congress: Analysis of the 2024 Defense Budget Request