CSBA in the News

Anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) is the term used by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a Washington-based security think tank, in a 2012 paper, “The Geostrategic Return of the Philippines,” which highlighted the paramount strategic value of the archipelago.

“During the Cold War, there was an old joke about the Nordic countries: ‘Norway has NATO (to shield it), Sweden has Finland, and Finland has a very, very long border with the Soviet Union,’” said Amb. Eric Edelman, counselor at the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments.

The difficult to detect and intercept MADL was designed for F-35s to talk to F-35s and not intended to share information beyond other JSFs, Bran Clark, a retired Navy officer, the former special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) and now a senior fellow at CSBA, told USNI News on Tuesday.

Another possible theory: The noise Duterte is making over US special forces may distract from the growing US military presence elsewhere. In March, Washington signed a new agreement with Manila to station American troops at five different bases in the Philippines. The move is seen as a counter to Chinese growing presences on nearby islands.

“The Navy may want to…in the frigate design, for example…come up with ways to simplify the propulsion architecture,” said Bryan Clark of the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments, a former top aide to the Chief of Naval Operations.

“The problem with a CR is normally when you go into a CR you don’t have the ability to do any new programs or new starts or add funding to an existing program,” said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a D.C.-based defense think tank. “You can continue the funding for a current program at the current level, which for a lot of programs is fine because … the amount of money you need maybe doesn’t change that much.”…