CSBA in the News

President Barack Obama’s decision to send nearly 600 troops to Poland and other countries in the Baltic region is a political message and not a signal that the United States is contemplating going to war with Russia, according to defense experts.

For decades the National Guard has fought hard against the stereotype that it was the place to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, or that it’s a place to get college money rather than combat duty.

President Barack Obama leaves on a diplomatic trip to Asia on Wednesday. First stop, Japan. Then, on to other allies in the region—South Korea, the Phillippines and Malaysia. He’ll be talking economics, and trade, and cooperation—to try to signal to these Pacific Rim allies that the U.S. is serious about its stated aim to ‘pivot’ toward them. Analysts say the President needs to convince them that the U.S. will back them up in their regional competition with rivals like China, as tensions have heated up over conflicts in the East China Sea.

Countries are increasingly open to international collaboration to save money and still build capability. “There are efforts afoot for countries to come together to meet requirements as a coalition,” notes Skot Butler, vice president of satellite networks and space systems for Intelsat General. Butler leads Intelsat General’s work with the DoD, NATO, various civil agencies, and commercial enterprises in the U.S. and Europe. “I’m aware of a number of initiatives where one country has a requirement but not enough to justify a program on their own and we bring them together with an ally in the region to host their requirements on a commercial satellite,” he says.

U.S. combat air forces are ill equipped to fight a technologically empowered enemy, and it could be years or decades before the Pentagon deploys more advanced weapons. Such is the grim picture painted in a new study by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The authors, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula and CSBA analyst Mark Gunzinger, make the case that aviation forces are not up to the challenges of 21st century warfare and the Pentagon has only itself to blame.

The Defense Department and Congress should give preference to fielding long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike aircraft to bolster the U.S. military posture in the Asia-Pacific and enable it to project power rapidly, according to a report from an influential Washington think tank.