It’s hard to find consensus on most anything in Washington D.C., but four national security-focused think tanks managed to forge something of a rough outline for the future of defense spending.
It’s no surprise that CSBA, CSIS, AEI and CNAS all agreed to cut the Army’s end strength as part of their budget drill. There seems to be fairly broad consensus on that point in Washington (outside of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno’s office). But some of the teams’ other choices, which were unveiled yesterday at a well-attended event on Capitol Hill, were more surprising.
THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM, CA. 2025: “Where are the carriers?”
Big budget cuts over the next decade will force the Pentagon to make painful cuts to personnel and readiness and could make it hard to execute a global security strategy, defense analysts predicted on Wednesday.
Four of the nation’s top national security think tanks projected what kind of forces and strategy the U.S. military could sustain if sequestration remains in full effect for the next decade, and the results were chilling.
This close to the March 4 submission of the fiscal 2015 budget request, getting specifics from service officials can be like pulling teeth. But a number of statements, both in public appearances and during interviews, provide a sense of direction for the Air Force’s plans.
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