Jacob Cohn of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments on the newest edition of their Strategic Choices Tool

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in effect made this Fashion Week in the military think-tank world by releasing on Monday the recommendations of five organizations that were asked to propose alternative defense postures for the U.S. 

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments recently hosted a Strategic Choices Exercise, where defense analysts from a number of think tanks took turns designing their optimum future force.

The analysts and teams composed of colleagues each built 10-year budgets using a "strategic choices" tool developed by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

If you were hoping, after a bitterly contentious presidential campaign, that at least we’d have consensus on national defense spending — tough luck. Instead, teams from five leading thinktanks, all using the same budget simulator, came up with a more than $2 trillion spread of options.

Five of the nation’s top national security think tanks presented widely varying ideas Oct. 18 on the strategy, the military force structure and funding needed to meet the global security environment 10 years in the future.