Publications

This backgrounder addresses the current state of the FY 2011 defense budget, identifies insights stemming from Secretary Gates’ announcement on the FY 2012 budget, and raises budgetary and programmatic issues likely to complicate DoD’s planning over the Future Year Defense Program (FYDP).

The South China Sea is a region of growing strategic interest for many countries in the world, including the United States. More than one-third of the world’s seaborne trade flows through its contested waters.

With a federal budget deficit that exceeded $1.3 trillion in FY 2010 and a rapidly mounting national debt, the findings of the Fiscal Commission established to identify ways to balance the budget have been much anticipated. Tackling the deficit is important to restoring the government’s fiscal health and the nation’s economic prosperity. It is also important to national security. History has demonstrated that in times of major conflict, the fiscal might of the United States and the ability to mobilize resources on a massive level have been a source of enduring strategic advantage. But with the deficit near record levels, the debt load rising, and interest payments on the debt consuming a greater share of the budget each year, this advantage is rapidly eroding.

In November 2008, the National Intelligence Council released Global Trends 2025 which argued that "the international system–as constructed following the Second World War–will be almost unrecognizable by 2025 owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalizing economy, a historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from West to East, and the growing influence of non-state actors...

As fiscal year 2010 draws to a close and the economy struggles to recover from the deepest recession since the Great Depression, the federal government faces a number of fiscal challenges. The budget deficit is projected to exceed $1.4 trillion due in part to increased spending on fiscal stimulus programs and a sharp reduction in tax revenues due to the recession. But underlying the current fiscal situation is a structural deficit that the economic downturn only exacerbated. As Congress and the administration focus more attention on reducing the deficit,all areas of the budget, including defense, have come under increased scrutiny.

The ability to conduct long-range strike operations has long provided the United States with a decisive military advantage over its enemies. Today, that advantage is dissipating