CSBA in the News

Obama fiscal year 2017 budget calls for $590 billion in Defense spending, including $58.8 billion for overseas contingency operations or war-fighting. Adjusting for inflation, the overall defense budget is down 25 percent from the peak in fiscal year 2010

2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and elsewhere. Specifically, The Rand Corporation has submitted a study on the future of aircraft carriers, and three separate organizations (The Mitre Corporation, the Navy Staff (N81), and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA)) have submitted views of appropriate future fleet architectures. 

Harriers are flying longer than they were initially expected to, said Jesse Sloman, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The fleet was supposed to be retired in 2012.

“Ready for what?” said Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the nonprofit Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Factors in readiness can include depot maintenance, hours of use of aircraft and Army full-spectrum training.

Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the independent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said Congress might abandon efforts to pass an annual budget this year and instead opt for a stopgap measure that maintains current spending levels for some part of 2017 until some other solution can be found.

That’s because they have realized that even the best surface vessels and warplanes are vulnerable to anti-ship or anti-aircraft missiles, says Bryan Clark of Washington’s Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent think-tank.