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Analysis of the FY 2018 Defense Budget – Procurement
Although increased capacity and lethality are the second priority of the Pentagon’s PB 2018 budget request behind restoring the readiness of the current force, funding for procurement increases far less than for RDT&E and operation and maintenance accounts (O&M) in real terms.[
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A Fleet to Do What?
Long before these pronouncements for a larger Navy were made, Congress asked what kind of fleet the country would need in the new century. Congress placed a requirement for studies of the Future Fleet Architectures (FFA) in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA required three different views: one from the Department of the Navy, one from a Federal Funded Research and Development Center, and one from a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research center. The Navy staff, led by its Assessment Division (OPNAV N81), completed the first, MITRE Corporation completed the second, and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA) completed the third. When on active duty, I participated in the Navy staff study, representing the Office of Net Assessment.
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Security, stability of Asia-Pacific region in best interests of Australia
Ross Babbage, a former senior defense official and founder of the Kokoda Foundation which enjoys a close relationship with the Australian Department of Defence, once called upon Australia to completely reconfigure its defense strategy in order to deter China or in his previous parlance to prepare to "rip an arm off" China.
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Hawks, Pentagon, industry brace for effects of ‘dreaded’ stop-gap defense budget
A stop-gap budget is likely to tie Pentagon's hands financially and create an accounting headache, said Katherine Blakeley, research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
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Guest essay: US guided missile warships in a dangerous demolition derby in Asian Pacific
Naval analyst Bryan Clark, of Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, states, “As the total number of ships operating over the last decade has gone down, the operational tempo has remained the same or increased. Fleet training has been reduced 20 to 25 percent over the last decade. There is a systemic problem overall that the surface Navy is getting worked a lot harder than its been designed to do.”
Navy Ships Kept at Sea Despite Training and Maintenance Needs, Admiral Says
In the past two decades, the number of Navy ships has decreased about 20 percent, though the time they are deployed has remained the same, according to a 2015 report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington research group funded by the Defense Department. The increased burden has fallen disproportionately on the Seventh Fleet.