CSBA in the News

While in open conflict, the fixed position of the islands would make the missiles easy targets but the weapons could have a coercive effect to China’s neighbors and U.S. operations in peacetime, Bryan Clark, naval analyst Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) and former special assistant to past Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News on Wednesday. “In a conflict, the islands will be hard to defend, but their value is in curtailing U.S. peacetime operations and in the opening moves of a conflict when they can threaten U.S. forces with a surprise attack,” he said. “If the U.S. deployed similar forces to Palawan [in the Philippines], it could similarly impact [People‘s Liberation Army] operations.”

Mark Gunzinger, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C., think tank that focuses on defense policy, said it’s too soon to say which of the four competitors may have a leg up. It’s not yet clear, he said, whether the Air Force wants the jet for training only, or intends to also give it a combat or air defense mission, or qualify it for sale to friendly foreign governments.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Washington- based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said that although it was surprising the Coast Guard once again did not invest substantial funds for UASs, there are other options.

So how can the Navy combat this? Through consolidation of networks and the cloud, Clark said. For example, the Navy used to have a situation where each ship basically had its own network. Now, all of those networks are being brought into one umbrella under the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services system.

In addition, emerging technological threats such as cyber-attacks, the advanced capabilities of long-range conventional strikes, and the threat of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks are changing the pattern of deterrence among various countries, according to Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). Even so, as he underscores the need for new deterrent capabilities, he does not minimize the need for a continued powerful nuclear deterrent…

All of this is ending up on the shoulders of the crew. If the PSA had gone off without a hitch, Minnesota would be nearing its first deployment, said Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer. To top it off, a big chunk of the plankowners are likely never to deploy with their boat. “For the crew it sucks because most of them came on not long before commissioning with the understanding that they would be doing a post-shakedown period in the yards, then work-ups then a deployment,” said Clark, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.