News

Navy orders pause in operations, safety review after USS John S. McCain collision

August 21, 2017 USA Today

Top priority missions, such as ballistic missile defense due to tensions with North Korea, will likely continue despite the pause, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the non-partisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Navy veteran and former senior civilian official at the Pentagon.

Life after Congress for former Rep. Forbes hasn’t meant retirement

August 21, 2017 The Virginian-Pilot

The new position adds to a portfolio that already includes a teaching position at Regent University in Virginia Beach and a fellowship at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Forbes also has joined the board of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank specializing in defense and national security.

Ten Sailors Missing After U.S. Warship Collision Near Singapore

August 21, 2017 Bloomberg

Between 1998 and 2015, the Navy shrank by 20 percent to 271 ships, while the number of vessels deployed overseas remained at about 100 ships, Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, wrote in a 2015 article for The National Interest. Clark concluded that each ship has to work 20 percent more to meet demand.

Dealing with Reality Shock: Refocusing on The World We Have Rather Than the World We Wish We Would Have

August 21, 2017 Second Line of Defense

During recent conversations with Ross Babbage in the United States and then Australia, we discussed the dynamics of change in the global environment and the challenges posed to the liberal democracies by the illiberal powers.

CSBA’s Clark: US Navy’s Future Frigate ‘Needs to Be a Multi-Mission Capable Ship

August 20, 2017 Defense and Aerospace Report

Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says the US Navy’s future frigate “needs to be a multi-mission capable ship” and gives Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian a status update on the program, including its recent request for information soliciting “industry’s ideas on what the frigate should be able to do,” during an August 2017 interview at CSBA headquarters in Washington.

Briefs

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

May 20, 2024 Katherine E. Dahlstrand, 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 E. Dahlstrand

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

The U.S. Navy’s Greatest Enemy Might Be Exhaustion

Navy orders pause in operations, safety review after USS John S. McCain collision

Life after Congress for former Rep. Forbes hasn’t meant retirement

Ten Sailors Missing After U.S. Warship Collision Near Singapore

Dealing with Reality Shock: Refocusing on The World We Have Rather Than the World We Wish We Would Have

CSBA’s Clark: US Navy’s Future Frigate ‘Needs to Be a Multi-Mission Capable Ship

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