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McCain, Thornberry Rip White House Budget Plan on Defense
Katherine Blakeley, a defense budget expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says a number of questions need to be addressed before the real details of the budget plan can be assessed. But one thing is clear, she said – that this plan is designed to be “politically untenable for the Democrats while trying to be as favorable as possible for the Republicans.”
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Defense stocks stage rally as Trump discusses defense spending jump
Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said there's "a broad consensus in Congress that the Budget Control Act should be repealed and that the legislature and the executive should be able to think about the needs of our domestic priorities, think about the needs of our defense priorities and square those. So far they've failed to do that."
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Army Races To Rebuild Short-Range Air Defense: New Lasers, Vehicles, Units
But another speaker, retired colonel turned thinktanker David Johnson, downplayed the risk of friendly fire. Given how well enemy air defenses may keep our aircraft out, Johnson said, “frankly, in early stages of some of these conflicts, you won’t have to worry about shooting down blue air. It won’t be there.”
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How many people would die in a war between the US and Russia?
Beyond conventional warfare, US think tank strategists are discussing what it would take to “win” a nuclear war. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) recently put out a 140-page report, “Preserving the Balance: A US Eurasia Defense Strategy,” which discusses this issue in detail.
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Is the Age of the Submarine Over?
How can the silent service stay in tune with the times? First and foremost, by acknowledging the danger posed by foreign navies toting gee-whiz gadgetry. Clark hints at how hard adapting to more transparent seas could prove: “unless U.S. forces adapt to and lead the new competition, the era of unrivaled U.S. undersea dominance could draw to a surprisingly abrupt close.” That’s a grim prognosis in itself. Abrupt change begets major traumas in big institutions like navies. It’s hard to get ahead of the process.
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Panel to Senate: Moving U.S. Forces Forward Key to Deterring Russia, China
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said — using the seizure of Crimea as an example — sending forces in later “would look like we’re trying to change the facts on the ground.” This makes the response look like an act of aggression. “We’re going to have to prevent those things [from happening] in the first place,” he said