News

The Obama administration is leaving incoming President Donald Trump with no formal national security strategy, according to research by a non-partisan think tank that puts forth a defense strategy for the U.S. military in Europe and Asia. The report, released by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments one day before Trump’s inauguration, assesses that China is the greatest long-term threat to U.S. interests, with Russia and Iran as secondary challenges. It recommended the incoming administration bolster American forces in the Western Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East.

Wealth, population and thin-skinned nationalism make China the number one threat to the US-led world order, not Russia or Islamic terrorism, writes leading military strategist Andrew Krepinevich. That means the US must build up forward-deployed forces in the Western Pacific, he writes, if necessary at the expense of defending Europe. Russia’s oil-dependent economy and withering demographics relegate it to the second-place threat in the near term, he argues, and in the long term — say, by the 2030s — Russia may become less dangerous than Iran, which Krepinevich’s forthcoming study from the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments ranks currently at No. 3.

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says the technology is 'one of the most critical operational domains in modern warfare.' However, it concluded 'unfortunately, 'failed to keep pace' is an appropriate description of the Department of Defense's (DoD) investments in EMS warfare capabilities over the last generation.' The report, 'Winning the Airwaves: Regaining America's Dominance in the Electromagnetic Spectrum', added the technology will become as revolutionary as smartphones. 'In the same way that smartphones and the Internet are redefining how the world shares, shops, learns, and works, the development and fielding of advanced sensors and networking technologies will enable militaries to gain significant new advantages over competitors that fail to keep pace,' it says.

The $640 billion plan, which McCain outlined in a white paper Monday, would be $90 billion more than the fiscal 2017 funding level, $55 billion more than what President Obama requested for fiscal 2018 in last year's budget and $7 billion more than the last pre-sequestration budget produced under Defense Secretary Robert Gates predicted for fiscal 2018, according to Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

It now seems obvious, if it wasn’t already, that Donald Trump is determined to pursue a policy of early and eager engagement with Russia. The signs are legion: the ongoing bromance with Vladimir Putin during the campaign, the appalling indifference to Russian meddling in the U.S. election, the proposal to condone Russia’s brutal military tactics and pursue counter-terrorism cooperation in Syria and perhaps elsewhere, and the forewarning that sanctions against Moscow may not be long for this world.

A recent report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) in Washington recommended a major escalation of action by the US and its allies in the South China Sea. It proposed more thorough-going military engagement including a program to demonstrate allied military superiority, deter further Chinese adventurism, and reinforce the confidence of regional allies and partners in the commitment of their Western partners to resisting Chinese coercion.