CSBA in the News

That’s because while China has spent billions of dollars upgrading many aspects of its armed forces, from fighter jets to naval destroyers, its ability to carry out anti-submarine warfare still lags behind, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. 

“This development would potentially give the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] a relatively secure second-strike capability. This could reduce the value of the U.S. nuclear deterrent against the North Koreans,” Bryan Clark a senior naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments told The National Interest.

Kate Blakeley, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the reports released by OMB and CBO illustrate how gridlocked Congress remains. “Right now, these reports on sequestration and the current BCA cap limits are a reminder that the BCA caps are still in force, and highlight the gulf that exists between the Senate and House [defense authorization] and appropriations bills,” she said.

The House Armed Services Committee chairman from Clarendon, Texas, co-authored the article with Andrew Krepinevich Jr., a national defense expert at Leesburg, Virginia-based Solarium and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The piece offers their thoughts on a defense strategy the new president will need deploy to successfully protect the country and its interests.

The serious tone of the guidance reflects the growing threat of great power conflict between the U.S. and China, said Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and former senior aid to Chief of Naval Operations Jon Greenert.

“It’s hard to imagine walking into a more difficult scenario than General MacFarland did last year,” said Peter Haynes, a retired Navy captain who is now a military strategist at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. “However, I think General Townsend is walking into an even greater challenge.”