CSBA in the News

Here’s another gem from that recent study on the defense industrial base — or rather the prospective lack of it — by the independent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Instead of tracing weapons’ cost growth over time, the folks at CSBA have simply divided each warbird’s fly-away cost (the cost of the plane, minus R&D and assorted other expenses) by how much it weighs, to come up with its cost-per-pound in today’s dollars. “Cost-per-pound may better capture the increasing information and electronic content (computers, software, navigation equipment, displays, sensors, electronic countermeasures and so forth) of modern weapon systems,” the study says. (That, of course, explains why a new iPhone costs $1.2 billion.) Surprise: the newest planes are the most costly, even after wringing out inflation’s impact.

The congressional supercommittee has two months to come up with a way to slash more than a trillion dollars from the federal deficit or risk deeper cuts that would be triggered automatically/…/ Everything is on the table in the debate — including defense spending.The heads of each branch of the military are making their case and explaining why their service is special/…/

The Navy is taking over management control and reducing Lockheed Martin Corp.’s role in a bid to cut costs on the sea service’s largest missile launching system/…/

The Pentagon should take an active role in managing the defense industrial base by identifying a handful of “critical” sectors that produce must-have capabilities, funding them with money shifted from weapons programs that are not essential to combating future threats, a new study recommends.

A day after we asked the question, one of DC’s top defense think tanks gave its answer: Yes, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a DoD “industrial policy” could help protect and sustain key areas of the U.S. defense industrial base. How likely is it? Well, that’s another matter.

“Proven” and “affordable” are words you hear a lot these days from sellers of military aircraft and other weapons systems in this dawning era of tight defense budgets.The word you don’t hear so much is “new,” which worries some key lawmakers, Pentagon officials and defense contractors.Deep cuts in defense spending, they say, are threatening American industry’s ability to maintain its technological edge and causing a loss of intellectual capital that will be hard to get back/…/