CSBA in the News

Interview with Hal Brands. Russian Roulette takes a look at the politics, economics, and culture of Russia and Eurasia through both interviews and lively discussion with experts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and around the world. Hosted by CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program experts Olga Oliker and Jeffrey Mankoff.

Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, discusses the Navy’s new Force Structure Assessment

But the MDA's future budgets are likely to go up “fairly substantially” with the next administration, Katherine Blakeley, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said during a Dec. 6 interview, noting that Trump's attitude toward missile defense closely aligns with that of current lawmakers. Pointing out that the MDA's budget was “right around” $9 billion “not that long ago” during the Bush administration, Blakeley said it would be “a large but achievable increase.”

Senior Navy officials have explained that the innovations contained in the USS South Dakota do, at least in part, help address an issue raised by a report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.  The report, titled “The Emerging Era in Undersea Warfare,” says the technological margin of difference separating the U.S from potential rivals is expected to get much smaller. This is requiring the U.S. to re-think the role of manned submarines and prioritize innovation in the realm of undersea warfare, the study says.

“Like the European powers at the start of World War I, we could find ourselves tremendously unprepared,” said Tom Mahnken, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “We’re likely to find ourselves surprised, and unpleasantly surprised.”