CSBA in the News

Three years after then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates cancelled the sprawling FCS program — the Army’s ambitious attempt to build a brigade’s worth of high-tech equipment, from light tanks to drones to computer networks, under a single contract — the Army and industry are still thrashing out the final bill, with a final proposal from lead contractor Boeing not due until September 30th/…/

Russia’s fleet of rusty strategic bombers has seen better days. For one, they haven’t seen significant upgrades in decades. For two, the fleet is less than half the size of America’s combined force of conventional B-52s, B-1Bs and B-2 stealth bombers. And with plans by the U.S. to build a stealthy new bomber augmented by a plethora of new drones, Russia risks not only being left behind, but being put out to pasture. There is also NATO’s deployment of missile interceptors in Europe for Russia to worry about.

The Navy drone aircraft that crashed in rural Maryland Monday likely will cost the military branch nearly $200 million at a time when the military’s budget is shrinking.

Facing economic uncertainty, defense contractors are plotting to spur Congress to nix the automatic budget cuts set to begin next year.

The Pentagon could hold onto its crown jewel weapon systems even though looming automatic federal spending cuts would inflict a $54 billion gash in the 2013 defense budget, military budget analysts say.

Fears about a looming fiscal crisis at the end of the year are starting to pinch job growth and threatening to undercut the nation’s fragile recovery, a growing number of economists and employers say.