In the News

News Analysis: Biden, recognizing the power of Zelensky’s plea to Congress, beefs up defense aid for Ukraine
  • March 17, 2022
  • Eli Stokols
  • Los Angeles Times

Eric Edelman, a former ambassador to Finland and Turkey who served as undersecretary of Defense under President George W. Bush, questioned the White House’s logic in determining that delivering MIG-29 jets could be deemed by Putin as escalatory when it continues to supply Javelin missiles and other weapons that are being used against Russian forces. The Biden administration rebuffed Poland’s efforts last week to transfer such jets to Ukraine.

“All of it is potentially escalatory,” Edelman said. “I wish they would stop worrying about what’s going to provoke Putin and start making Putin worry about what’s going to provoke the U.S. and NATO.”

Analysis

What the Use of Russian Conscripts Tells Us About the War in Ukraine
  • March 17, 2022
  • Katherine Kjellström Elgin and Suzanne Freeman
  • Politico

Russian President Vladimir Putin likely never thought he would have to admit that conscripts had been used in Ukraine — and, yet, the Russian government had to do just that.

Conscription is a sensitive topic in Russia, and their use by the Kremlin indicates the degree to which the country’s leaders believed they could keep the cost of the war hidden from the domestic populace. But now that their deployment is public, what does Russia’s continued use of conscripts say about the war and the future course the conflict may take?

Press Releases

CSBA Welcomes New Defense Journalism Fellows
  • February 7, 2022

CSBA is proud to announce its inaugural fellows for the CSBA 2022 Defense Journalism Seminar Series. This seminar series is an in-depth program for working journalists in the defense and national security beats and aims to provide outstanding defense reporters with tools to master the foundations of defense policy, operational concepts, budgets, and the intricacies of contemporary national security processes.

Press Releases

CSBA CEO Thomas G. Mahnken on a New Maritime Strategy for China
  • February 3, 2022
  • United States Naval Institute

The February 2022 issue of Proceedings, the journal of the United States Naval Institute, features an article by Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken, President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), as part of its ongoing American Sea Power Project. In “A Maritime Strategy to Deal with China,” Dr. Mahnken assesses the current deficit of U.S. strategic thinking about the PRC and argues that a maritime strategy for China should seek to address those elements of Chinese behavior that are of greatest concern to the United States and its allies.

In the News

A Maritime Strategy to Deal with China
  • February 2, 2022
  • Thomas G. Mahnken
  • U.S. Naval Institute

The United States today suffers from a critical deficit in strategic thinking about the most consequential challenge of the current era: the rise of China and the threat it poses to U.S. interests in the western Pacific and beyond. Addressing that deficit is a matter of the utmost importance and urgency. The prospect of 21st-century great power war is terra incognita.

Analysis

Shield of the Republic: Heeding the Lessons of the Cold War (with Hal Brands and Bill Kristol)
  • January 21, 2022
  • Eric Edelman

Mystery guest host (Bill Kristol) joins Eric for a discussion with Johns Hopkins SAIS Professor Hal Brands about his new book the Twilight Struggle. They discuss the lessons of America's cold war strategic competition with the USSR for today's era of strategic competition with China and Russia—the role of strategy, economic competition, political warfare, and more.

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