CSBA in the News

The Navy underwent a massive build up in the 1980s during the Reagan era, an effort that suggests that expanding the size of the surface fleet is not always good for sailors and Navy readiness, said Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer who is now an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“One proposal was developed by two researchers at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment. Timothy A. Walton and Ryan Boone proposed specific changes in posture and investment priorities that could improve the U.S. military's ability to conduct sustained operations in the Asia Pacific.”

As President-elect Trump assembles the team of national security leaders and diplomats who will play crucial roles in shaping how the United States will operate in the world and defend itself against our enemies, he is already challenging some of the pillars of both recent Democratic and Republican foreign policy agendas

“The Pentagon feels like the US is well-positioned to do undersea warfare and anti-submarine warfare better than any other country,” said Mr Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He is the author of a report titled “The emerging era in undersea warfare”.

According to a study from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), China has put installations on four islands in the Paracel group and significant installations on eight islands in the Spratly group. As before, China moved incrementally to avoid triggering a major Western reaction. The Obama administration has taken a few symbolic steps to defend freedom of navigation in the region, but they have had no evident effect on Chinese behavior. On Thursday, China’s navy seized an underwater drone collecting data for a U.S. Navy oceanographic vessel.