CSBA in the News

Since 9/11, the U.S. military has invested massively in protecting its troops, buying add-on armor kits for everything from the humble Humvee to the massive M1 tank. Now the spread of smart weapons to Third World forces, both rogue states and guerrillas, may up the threat faster than we can counter, warns a new report from thinktank analyst and frequent Pentagon advisor Andrew Krepinevich. “The experience in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that anti-armor weapons will be cheaper and faster to field [than upgraded armor protection],” Krepinevich told reporters gathered at the thinktank he heads, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “That’s not a game you want to be in if you’re in an age of austerity, so that creates a real problem for the Army and Marine Corps” – particularly, he said, for programs like the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle.

The traditional approach to updating U.S. military hardware — spending years and billions of dollars on next-generation designs — is no longer working for the Army and the Marine Corps as they seek replacements for their combat vehicles.

While the shadow of uncertainty has been cast on a promising vehicle survivability technology known as the “structural blast chimney” due to the cancellation of the Army’s competitive humvee recapitalization program, it may be revived for the upcoming Joint Light Tactical Vehicle competition, Inside the Army has learned from sources and officials.

Major acquisition programs fail more often than not/…/

The U.S. Navy lacks a target needed to check its defenses against a new Chinese ballistic missile designed to attack multibillion-dollar aircraft carriers, according to the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester.

Keeping one American service member in Afghanistan costs between $850,000 and $1.4 million a year, depending on who you ask. But one matter is clear, that cost is going up.