CSBA in the News

The Air Force Reserve 445th Airlift Wing, which flies troop and cargo missions around the globe from Wright-Patterson, will shut down operations on Fridays when civilian employee furloughs begin, according to unit leaders/…/

There is a growing sense among defense-budget watchers that the U.S. military and its political masters are pretending the shave the armed forces just got from sequestration’s blade isn’t going to lead to decapitation in what Pentagon dweebs like to call the “out-years,” and what normal folks call the “future.”

The Pentagon never believed sequestration would actually happen, but now that it’s here, things are unlikely to change, according to several defense experts who believe DoD’s leadership is still in denial about the fact it’s going to have to deal with significant reductions in its budget future/…/

The F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, the KC-46 refueling tanker and a new long-range strike bomber rank at the top of new aircraft priorities. But those goals, which would cost nearly $400 billion for the F-35 to equip the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, and $52 billion for a new tanker, could feel the pain of spending cuts, according to the highest-ranking Air Force officials, along with moves to slash flying hours and pilot training.

The spending bill Congress passed shows $1.2 trillion in budget cuts that weren’t supposed to happen are now part of the political landscape.

Asked flat out whether transformation was back as a central organizing principle for the Pentagon, Krepinevich — who literally wrote the paper on transformation, “The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment” in 1992 — said no. Pressed further, he says: “I would probably prefer to give a not-sure answer.” He argues with his usual precision that transformation per se — roughly defined as the Pentagon’s efforts to actually implement a Revolution in Military Affairs — may not have ever really happened, so it’s hard to say it’s back/…/