News

Russian Spy Ship Now Off Hawaii, U.S. Navy Protecting ‘Critical Information’

July 6, 2016 USNI News

“It used to be that AGIs would deploy regularly off their ports and we would encounter them and they would operate very safely and professionally — mostly looking for signals intelligence,” Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former aide to retired Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News...

Analysts Developing New Fleet Designs Ahead of Updated Ship Requirement

July 5, 2016 Inside Defense

The three "fleet architecture" studies are being completed by the office of the chief of naval operations' assessment division (N81), the MITRE Group and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, respectively. Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at CSBA who is leading the fleet architecture analysis, said the three studies will inform the Navy's new Force Structure Assessment (FSA), which lays out the number of ships the Navy needs...

Pentagon Cautiously Optimistic About Laser Weapons

July 3, 2016 National Defense Magazine

“We’ve been out to the labs, we’ve seen the technology at a classified level, and we’ve come to the conclusion independently, as have others in the DoD, that the technology is ready,” said Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments...

Congress Has a New Plan to Rein In Military Spending. Soldiers Are Going to Hate It.

June 28, 2016 Mother Jones

"Any low-hanging fruit has gone away, at the very least," says Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense think tank. Blakeley points out that housing allowances were never intended to simply be bonus cash for troops, even if many soldiers now use them that way. BAH was originally intended to cover only about 80 percent of a soldier's housing costs, she said—it's now designed to cover 99 percent [5]—and the Senate's changes are an attempt to make such stipends "a little more true to what their purposes are. If you want troops to be able to have $400 in their pocket more every month, a better way to do that is to look at the actual pay."..

Marines Pull Aircraft From ‘Boneyard,’ Get Used Navy Jets Amid Aviation Crisis

June 23, 2016 Marine Corps Times

Some have suggested that the Marine Corps should have purchased newer F/A-18E and F Super Hornets as a stopgap measure, but that would have slowed the service’s procurement of F-35s, putting even more stress on its Hornets and AV-8B Harriers, said Jesse Sloman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank in Washington.

Briefs

Understanding NATO’s Concept for Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area

May 20, 2024 Katherine E. Dahlstrand, 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 E. Dahlstrand

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

Russian Spy Ship Now Off Hawaii, U.S. Navy Protecting ‘Critical Information’

Analysts Developing New Fleet Designs Ahead of Updated Ship Requirement

Pentagon Cautiously Optimistic About Laser Weapons

Congress Has a New Plan to Rein In Military Spending. Soldiers Are Going to Hate It.

China Building own Stealth Bomber Helped by Data from Convicted Indian Spy

Marines Pull Aircraft From ‘Boneyard,’ Get Used Navy Jets Amid Aviation Crisis

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