News

Austal Pushes Big Missiles For Small Ships: LCS & VLS

April 7, 2017 Navy Times

“For the Independence-class LCS, the trimaran design is probably better able to accommodate adding weight in the form of missile launchers higher in the ship,” said Bryan Clark, a retired Navy officer, who’s argued for VLS-equipped LCS in the past.

Inside a B-2 Mission: How to Bomb Just About Anywhere From Missouri

April 6, 2017 Kansas City Star

“No other nation has that capability … to send bombers from our homeland to any place on the globe,” said Mark Gunzinger, a former Air Force colonel and B-52 pilot now working as a senior fellow at the Center for Budgetary and Strategic Assessments. “Using that force projection in Libya serves as a deterrent to rivals elsewhere.”

Critical Assumptions and American Grand Strategy

April 5, 2017 RealClearDefense

RealClearDefense talks to Dr. Hal Brands of SAIS and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments regarding American Grand Strategy in the lastest report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Trump’s Navy Buildup

April 3, 2017 Washington Examiner

A fleet architecture plan from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, which McGrath worked on, decreases the number of large surface combatants from 88 to 71 and increases the number of small surface combatants, allowing the Navy to be in more places at once.

Remember the Sequester? Trump’s Defense Buildup Runs up Against Budget Politics

April 3, 2017 Yahoo News

“The debacle of the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans failing to repeal Obamacare showed that it will be very hard for the Trump administration to hold together the hardline and more establishment factions in the House,” said Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). Secondly, it also showed that Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are still in no mood to compromise. “And I’ve seen no legislative strategy coming from the White House to overcome those obstacles and move their agenda.”

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

Laser Weapons Edge Toward Use in US Military

Austal Pushes Big Missiles For Small Ships: LCS & VLS

Inside a B-2 Mission: How to Bomb Just About Anywhere From Missouri

Critical Assumptions and American Grand Strategy

Trump’s Navy Buildup

Remember the Sequester? Trump’s Defense Buildup Runs up Against Budget Politics

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