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Defense Experts Discuss Presidential Candidates’ National Security Views
The United States is on the cusp of a major debate in both political parties over the country’s role in the world, but so far the presidential candidates have not made clear their own priorities in a time when defense spending is unlikely to grow, a panel of national security experts agreed Tuesday. Jim Thomas, a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, said today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that “there’s always going to be hard limits as to how far [an incoming president] can go” in changing national security strategy – debt payments, rising entitlement costs, treaty constraints, a balky Congress and evolving international challenges.
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Analysts: Next President Must Make ‘Tough Choices’ on Future of U.S. Military
The mismatch between resources and commitments will require “unbelievably hard choices,” said Jim Thomas, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "We're coming up on some really big, fundamental questions and I don't think that either candidate so far has even begun to address them," he said.
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US Navy’s Sixth-Generation F/A-XX Fighter: Just a ‘Super’ Super Hornet?
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said that the Naval Integrated Fire Control Counter-Air (NIFC-CA) will be the key for the Navy’s carrier-based air operations in the post-2030 environment. One option is “using F-35Cs or Bs as stealthy ISR platforms that passively find targets, which are communicated using secure datalinks to F/A-18 E/F ‘missile trucks’ located at standoff range from threat air defenses or aircraft,” Clark said.
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NATO Not Ready As Russian Sub Threat Rises: CSIS
Bryan Clark, formerly a top aide to the Chief of Naval Operations, was more optimistic. “While SOSUS did suffer from lack of attention in the 1990s, it has been reinvigorated and is now part of an Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) that includes other arrays and the SURTASS surveillance ships,” he told me.
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A-10, Then A-11 And A-12? Air Force Ponders CAS Future
Gunzinger, an analyst with the respected Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, said “my personal opinion is the Air Force ought to try and fly the wings off the A-10,” because we’ve got it now and it provides such superb service.
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Report: Russian Sub Activity on the Rise in North Atlantic
Looking at the Baltic itself, Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment and an American submarine veteran, said its shallow waters “are acoustically very different” than others, presenting a different set of problems to be addressed.