Publications

The battle lines over defense spending in the Trump Administration are already being drawn. Senator McCain has staked out a broad vision of restored readiness, targeted investments in advanced capabilities, and thoughtful growth in military capacity. In this budget brief, CSBA Research Fellow Katherine Blakeley lays out the details of Senator McCain’s proposed defense investments with accompanying interactive visualizations.

The 2017 fiscal year once again began with an interim continuing resolution—the eighth year in a row that Congress has failed to pass a budget for the federal government by the start of the new fiscal year. This continuing resolution maintains the 2016 levels of funding for the Department of Defense (DoD) until December 9, 2016. With the Republicans maintaining control of the House and Senate and taking the White House, increases in defense spending would likely appear sometime after the new Congress and President take office in January. DoD might have a fiscal year (FY) 2017 spending bill in February or March if the defense hawks and the deficit hawks within the Republican caucus can come to terms.

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments began its analytic work in 1983 as the Defense Budget Project. Its mission was to fulfill an urgent need for research and information on defense policy and budget issues.

President Obama’s last budget, to be released February 9th, is his last chance to put his administration’s stamp on the nation’s defense spending.

While costs are projected to grow over the next decade due to a "bow wave" of nuclear modernization programs, Harrison concludes that the search for savings in nuclear forces continues to be a "hunt for small potatoes."

For over two decades, the U.S. military has enjoyed a near-monopoly in precision-guided munitions and their associated battle networks. Recently, however, the proliferation of these capabilities to other militaries and non-state entities is gathering momentum. How will this emerging precision-strike regime impact the character of maritime warfare? In this backgrounder, Dr. Andrew Krepinevich summarizes and presents findings regarding the likely character of future maritime warfare and options for preserving U.S. freedom of maneuver in the maritime domain.