CSBA in the News

Another example, one analyst says, of the military procurement system not adequately looking ahead when dreaming up weapons projects. “You’ve got a very complex aircraft — and there are many, many interesting technologies in this — where it’s tough enough to consider the operational and technological factors,” said Jan van Tol of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “But apparently, they’ve not looked as carefully at second- and third-order issues.”

Defense budget analysts say that rising health care costs will make less money available for new weapons, repairs to a worn-out arsenal and quality-of-life programs like schools on military bases. “In the long run, it could actually limit our ability to field a military of sufficient size,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

On the broader strategic front Lieberman told the Foreign Policy Initiative conference that he consistently hears from allies “unmistakable uncertainty about our staying power.” His comment echoed recent statements by Sen. McCain, Rep. Buck McKeon, presumptive chair of the House Armed Services Committee, and a host of commentators that America may be in a state of global decline. Addressing and correcting what he clearly believes is a misperception, Lieberman said, “is in our national interest.” The recent report issued by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments tackled this argument head on.

Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said, “This report should be a wake-up call to anyone in DoD who didn’t already know this was coming. Our budget problems are serious, and fixing them is going to require sacrifices in all parts of government.”

Todd Harrison believes that [the commission co-chairs] intended this draft release as a starting point for a discussion. “If you look at what they did beyond defense spending, about $400 bln. in total  savings in the year 2015 to help reduce the deficit. And it is split almost  equally between defense, non-defense discretionary, mandatory and tax revenue. So they really spread this around,” he pointed out.

Eric Edelman, an undersecretary of defense for policy in the Bush administration, says that Afghanistan has shown the limits of what NATO can do. In “Understanding America’s Contested Primacy”, a pamphlet for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based think-tank, he argues that although NATO still has value as a regional alliance, for demographic, economic and cultural reasons it will be increasingly hard pressed “to generate substantial useful military capability”. He recommends developing partnerships with countries such as India, Brazil and Australia, which may be willing and able to do more than America’s traditional allies, and which are in parts of the world that reflect today’s security preoccupations.