Resources

CSBA’s research on the most pressing issues in US national security continues to shape the defense agenda. CSBA’s research focuses on four main areas:

Strategy & Policy

Today, the United States confronts a number of challenges to its national security: the rise of China, a revisionist Russia, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and disruption, and the spread of Islamic extremism. The United States finds itself tackling these challenges at a time when its primacy is increasingly contested and its economic foundation eroding. CSBA seeks to inform the development of U.S. strategy by developing innovative options to reconcile ends and means, and by identifying sources of enduring advantage to help the U.S. sustain its position and meet challenges of the 21st century.

Studies

The Decisive Decade: United States–China Competition in Defense Innovation and Defense Industrial Policy in and Beyond the 2020s

May 22, 2023 Thomas G. Mahnken, Tai Ming Cheung

In the long-term competition between the United States and China, the competitive edge will be decided not only by who more effectively fields current capabilities and strategies, but also by which state's techno-security system can most effectively develop and field new technologies for strategic, dual-use, and defense applications. Although both states recognize the need to prevail in the techno-security competition, the two have drastically different approaches to defense innovation and defense industrial policy.

See all Strategy & Policy Publications

Budget & Resources

CSBA plays an essential role in facilitating a more informed debate on defense budgeting and resourcing.

The perennial question for U.S. policymakers is: How much is enough? Following a long military buildup, the U.S. military confronts increasing pressures for cuts in defense spending in light of the United States’ deteriorating fiscal situation. The Defense Department is entering what may be a protracted period of austerity which will require difficult budgetary and resourcing decisions.

CSBA’s research program provides an independent source of budgetary analysis to help those both in and out of government understand budgetary trends; the near-and long-term implications of prospective trade-offs; the second-order consequences of changes to the defense program; and how they fit within the overall context of U.S. defense policy and strategy.

DOWNLOAD: Strategic Choices Tool Information Sheet (PDF)

Studies

How I Learned To Start Worrying And Hate Real Growth: Analysis of the 2023 Defense Budget Request

July 18, 2022 Travis Sharp

In May 2022, the Pentagon presented its second budget request to the Biden Administration, proposing a $773 billion topline for Fiscal Year 2023. Although estimates of nominal and real growth have varied based on this figure, the question of inflation’s impact on the defense budget looms large. Congress recognizes that accepting the Administration’s request as-is would lead to slim pickings when it comes to funding the DoD’s priorities, but the question remains whether to approve a large increase to avoid a purchasing power gap or to continue the trend of minor budgetary increases.

See all Budget & Resources Publications

Future Warfare & Concepts

CSBA specializes in thinking about the future of warfare. As President Dwight Eisenhower observed, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” While it may be impossible to predict the future, thinking about the future is essential to formulate concepts and strategies that will be effective across the widest range of contingencies, and executable within projected resource limitations.

CSBA uses the methodology of net assessment to frame future military competitions. It evaluates the relative strengths and weaknesses of competitors and suggests sources of competitive advantage, while explicitly taking uncertainty into account. CSBA also utilizes scenario planning and wargaming to identify future trends and candidate operational concepts, understand emerging warfare regimes, and challenge preconceived notions of the future.

CSBA’s work has highlighted the increasingly non-permissive character of the security environment, such as the maturation and spread of anti-access/area-denial capabilities and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and disruption that threaten to negate the U.S. military’s traditional approach to power projection.

Based on insights gleaned through research, wargaming and exploration of future warfighting scenarios, CSBA has developed pathbreaking operational concepts to inform the U.S. military’s operational planning. These concepts serve as the “connective tissue” linking U.S. strategy with the defense program.

Studies

Speeding Toward Instability? Hypersonic Weapons and the Risks of Nuclear Use

May 1, 2023 Evan B. Montgomery, Toshi Yoshihara

Today, states are pursuing an array of supposedly "disruptive" or "game-changing" technologies that could alter how they organize, train, equip, and employ their forces, including their nuclear forces. The 2022 National Defense Strategy emphasized the link between some of these technologies and the risk of nuclear use, noting that "a wide range of new or fast-evolving technologies and applications are complicating escalation dynamics and creating new challenges for strategic stability."

See all Future Warfare & Concepts Publications

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.

Studies

Moving Pieces: Near-Term Changes to Pacific Air Posture

November 18, 2022 Carl Rehberg, Josh Chang

The threat to U.S. and allied air facilities in the Indo-Pacific region is increasing. Current air force posture is vulnerable to adversary first strike due to insufficient posture resiliency—the ability of deployed forces to survive, operate, and regenerate under adversary attack. The recently announced decision to replace the permanent F-15C Eagle squadrons at Kadena Air Base with a rotational deployment only reduces the effectiveness of U.S. Indo-Pacific air forces in the event of a conflict. Defense planning in recent years has outlined recommendations to improve the defense of both facilities and others in the region, but these recommendations have only been partially implemented at best.

See all Forces & Capabilities Publications

Speeding Toward Instability? Hypersonic Weapons and the Risks of Nuclear Use

Air Power Metamorphosis: Rethinking Air Force Combat Force Modernization

Innovating for Great Power Competition: An Examination of Service and Joint Innovation Efforts

Chinese Lessons From the Pacific War: Implications for PLA Warfighting

Moving Pieces: Near-Term Changes to Pacific Air Posture

Arming America’s Allies: Historical Lessons for Implementing a Post-INF Treaty Missile Strategy

Rings of Fire: A Conventional Missile Strategy for a Post-INF Treaty World

Featured Event

Report Release Webinar: Chinese Lessons From the Pacific War: Implications for PLA Warfighting

Resources

Strategy & Policy

The Decisive Decade: United States–China Competition in Defense Innovation and Defense Industrial Policy in and Beyond the 2020s

Budget & Resources

How I Learned To Start Worrying And Hate Real Growth: Analysis of the 2023 Defense Budget Request

Future Warfare & Concepts

Speeding Toward Instability? Hypersonic Weapons and the Risks of Nuclear Use

Forces & Capabilities

Moving Pieces: Near-Term Changes to Pacific Air Posture

Latest Publications

The Decisive Decade: United States–China Competition in Defense Innovation and Defense Industrial Policy in and Beyond the 2020s

Speeding Toward Instability? Hypersonic Weapons and the Risks of Nuclear Use

2022 Annual Report

Big Centralization, Small Bets, and the Warfighting Implications of Middling Progress: Three Concerns about JADC2’s Trajectory

Testimony to the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Regional Nuclear Deterrence

Air Power Metamorphosis: Rethinking Air Force Combat Force Modernization