Publications

CSBA’s mission is to develop innovative, resource-informed defense concepts, promote public debate, and spur action to advance U.S. and allied interests. Our vision is to set the terms of debate for the future of national defense and drive change in concept development, force structure, and resources to prepare the US and its allies to compete and win in an era characterized by great power competition and conflict.

The United States has always been a maritime nation. Since its founding, Americans have taken to the sea for trade, to harvest the resources in America’s waters and seabed, and to defend or advance the country’s interests. A robust commercial maritime industry is essential to support these efforts, which enhance America’s prosperity and security.

It is far from smooth sailing for the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) as it confronts risks to the way in which it is funded. This brief seeks to explain why the EDI was started, what it funds, and the budgetary challenges it faces to its implementation and sustainment.

For more than two decades, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has provided consistent, high-quality, and innovative research on defense strategy, budgets, and the security environment. CSBA’s mission today is to promote innovative thinking and debate about national security strategy, defense planning, and military investments, as well as to provide timely, impartial, and insightful analyses to senior members of the executive and legislative branches, the media, and the broader national security establishment to make informed decisions regarding strategy, security policy, and resource allocation.

For nearly two decades, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) has provided consistent, high-quality, and innovative research on defense strategy, budgets, and the security environment. CSBA experts have worked to analyze U.S. defense strategy, force structure and planning, and defense budgets in the effort to reconcile these interrelated subjects. CSBA remains instrumental in guiding the nation’s most critical defense policy debates as a small, powerful group comprising experts with extensive experience in the field of national security—many of them military veterans and former senior level policy makers from the Department of Defense, State Department, and the National Security Council—supported by a dedicated staff of accomplished executives and scholars.

The United States is unilaterally divesting itself of its cluster munitions by 2018. It is doing so based on a 2008 policy decision to comply with the Oslo Treaty, which restricts the use of cluster munitions, even though the United States is not a signatory to this treaty.