Publications

In 2023, the Air Force unveiled plans to acquire a fleet of autonomous unmanned collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) that would fly under the custody of manned aircraft pilots as loyal wingmen. The Air Force has stressed the CCA’s broad usefulness across diverse missions, including forward sensing, air-to-air attack, and electronic warfare. Despite this emphasis, the fact remains that tradeoffs must be made for any aircraft to excel at a given mission. The CCA is no exception.

In 2023, the Air Force unveiled plans to acquire a fleet of autonomous unmanned collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) that would fly under the custody of manned aircraft pilots as loyal wingmen and perform forward sensing, air-to-air attack, and electronic warfare. Moving the CCA from promise to reality will require difficult work stretching far into the future. To succeed, the Air Force must start with an honest accounting of what is required and where things stand.

America’s strategic approach to Taiwan is ripe for reevaluation. Although Washington’s sensitivity to Taipei’s security dilemma has increased markedly in recent years, U.S. policy toward Taiwan remains bound by a series of outdated historical understandings. As a result, American policymakers have focused narrowly on arms sales to the island, rather than developing and articulating a new vision for United States-Taiwan security cooperation.

In February 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the Pentagon to reexamine the 2026 budget request, which has been drafted but not sent to Congress, to ensure that it reflected the Trump administration’s priorities. Specifically, he tasked the military departments and defense agencies with identifying lower-priority activities totaling 8 percent of their projected annual budgets from 2026 to 2030. These lists of potential cuts will create a substantial pool of money available for potential reallocation. 

Over the past decade, as Russia and China have enhanced their nuclear capabilities, the United States has sought to negotiate arms control arrangements that would avoid a new nuclear arms race. So far, however, those efforts have proven unsuccessful. As a result, Washington is on track to confront an authoritarian axis of two nuclear peer competitors over the next decade. Meanwhile, its planned nuclear posture still reflects a far more benign threat environment.

China’s ambitions, assertiveness, and massive military expansion have stimulated a major shift in Australia’s defense policy. From the AUKUS partnership to new allied posture arrangements to the acquisition of long-range strike capabilities, Australia is carrying out a series of ambitious initiatives to strengthen deterrence. Canberra has further called on the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to become a “focused force” designed to deal with the highest-order dangers. As Australia undergoes this strategic reorientation, it confronts weighty investment and divestment decisions that could have lasting consequences for force structure and posture.