CSBA in the News

“The days of rapid growth of (weapons) acquisition spending are coming to an end,” said Todd Harrison, senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

But analysts predict that given the way the program is structured, the Army may just end up with a tricked-out Bradley or a mine-resistant ambush-protected truck on tracks.

As a first step toward a new family of bombers, the U.S. ought to develop a fleet of at least 100 “optionally manned planes” that can carry a payload of 20,000 pounds (9,072 kilograms) and fly as far as 5,000 nautical miles, Mark Gunzinger, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent Washington-based defense research group, wrote in a report last year.

The $185 million first-of-class ship is coming in on budget, officials said. That the program appears to be running more smoothly than other shipbuilding efforts can be attributed in part to the vessel’s commercial-based design, said Jan van Tol, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the Pentagon is merely laying ground rules in anticipation of some mergers and acquisitions.

“With the deficit at $1.5 trillion for FY 2011, and tax cuts taken off the table for at least the next two years, pressure is building to reduce government spending, and DoD is not likely to be immune from this,” said Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.  “In a period of fiscal austerity, that means DoD will have to accept some risks and divest of lower-priority programs and capabilities.”