Resources
CSBA’s research on the most pressing issues in U.S. national security continues to shape the defense agenda. CSBA’s research focuses on four main areas:
Strategy & Policy
Budget & Resources
Future Warfare & Concepts
Forces & Capabilities
Sound force planning identifies, develops and fields forces and capabilities best aligned to support a given strategy. To this end it identifies needed changes in force structure, operational concepts, and system performance characteristics. Force planning requires thoughtful prioritization and risk balancing in considering how forces and capabilities should be sized and shaped.
CSBA’s research highlights attributes and characteristics of forces and capabilities best suited for the future security environment. In so doing it identifies critical gaps and seams in the current defense program and provides options for improving the U.S. military’s organization, training, equipment, and doctrine for meeting future security challenges.
No Dominant Strategy for Air Dominance: Collaborative Combat Aircraft Employment, Basing, and Sortie Generation in a Taiwan Scenario
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.