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In the News

Critics Question Pentagon’s New Strategy

January 5, 2012 NPR

For two decades, the Pentagon has maintained that it could fight two wars at the same time. But as the Obama administration releases its new military strategy Thursday, some question whether the Pentagon will abandon that long-held commitment/.../

In the News

Iranian Sabre-Rattling Won’t Spark Arms Race, Analysts Say

January 4, 2012 AOL Defense

American allies in the the Middle East won't be rushing to flood their arsenals with U.S. military hardware as a result of Iran's recent aggressiveness in the region, according to defense experts.

In the News

China Takes Aim At U.S. Naval Might

January 4, 2012 Wall Street Journal

China is engaged in a major military buildup. Part of its plan is to force U.S. carriers to stay farther away from its shores, Chinese military analysts say/.../

In the News

Hopes Dim For Bold Fiscal Leadership

January 3, 2012 Aviation Week

In many respects, the election-year debate over U.S. defense budgets has yet to start, for two reasons: The defense topline over the next decade is unknown, within a very wide range, and Congress, lobbyists and the rest of the Washington defense machine have yet to grasp that unprecedented changes, compromises and even sacrifices may be needed to balance the books without ending up with a “hollow force/.../”

In the News

U.S. Can’t Fight Two Wars at the Same Time Anymore

January 3, 2012 The Atlantic Wire

This week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is poised to deliver a humbling assessment of America's military capabilities in a budget plan to the White House, reports The New York Times. The gist: The U.S. military of the future will no longer be able to fight two sustained ground wars at the same time. The strategic review will outline how the military can cut $450 billion from its budget, amid speculation that Congress may cut an additional $500 billion in the near future. Acknowledging an incapacity to wage two wars is not ideal, notes Andrew Krepinevich, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, but it's better than the alternative. "You may risk losing the confidence of some allies, and you may risk emboldening your adversaries," he says. "But at the end of the day, a strategy of bluffing, or asserting that you have a capability that you don’t, is probably the worst posture of all.”

In the News

Panetta To Offer Strategy For Cutting Military Budget

January 3, 2012 New York Times

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is set this week to reveal his strategy that will guide the Pentagon in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from its budget, and with it the Obama administration’s vision of the military that the United States needs to meet 21st-century threats, according to senior officials.

Focused Force: China’s Military Challenge and Australia’s Response

China’s ambitions, assertiveness, and massive military expansion have stimulated a major shift in Australia’s defense policy. From the AUKUS partnership to new allied posture arrangements to the acquisition of long-range strike capabilities, Australia is carrying out a series of ambitious initiatives to strengthen deterrence. Canberra has further called on the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to become a “focused force” designed to deal with the highest-order dangers. As Australia undergoes this strategic reorientation, it confronts weighty investment and divestment decisions that could have lasting consequences for force structure and posture.

Putting It All Together: The 2025 Defense Budget Request, Alternative Budget Proposals, and NATO Spending

With a new administration and new Congress entering office, experts from across the political spectrum have introduced competing proposals for future U.S. defense budgets. The most noteworthy aspect of these proposals is the extraordinary degree to which they differ. One issue driving the differences is NATO military spending. Much attention has centered on NATO members devoting at least 2 percent of their GDP to defense. Despite this attention, research has rarely projected the additional funding and forces that could be generated if all NATO countries met the 2 percent of GDP benchmark—or a higher target.

Understanding NATO’s Concept for Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area

May 20, 2024 Katherine E. Dahlstrand, Sean Monaghan, Sara Bjerg Moller

NATO, the largest and most powerful military alliance in history, turned seventy-five in April. In July, the leaders of NATO will return to the city where its founding document, the Washington Treaty, was signed in 1949. Most people have heard of NATO. Fewer know its most important document is the Strategic Concept, which is updated every decade or so, and sets the Alliance’s strategy. An even smaller group know about NATO’s “Concept for Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area.”

More of the Same? The Future of the Russian Military And Its Ability to Change

Assessing the type of threat that Russia is likely to pose in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine is a critical challenge for the United States and its allies. What will the Russian military look like in the future? Some argue that the Russian military will remain a significant threat – and perhaps become a very different and even more serious one. This argument holds that the Russian military will reconstitute in a relatively short time frame and may reform according to lessons learned during the war in Ukraine. Others argue that the Russian military will pose a far less formidable conventional threat going forward. Not only has the war against Ukraine exposed fundamental weaknesses in the Russian military, the argument goes, but Moscow’s ability to address those weaknesses will be limited by available manpower, sanctions, and export controls.

An Ongoing and Necessary Renaissance: NATO’s Nuclear Posture

January 25, 2024 Eric Edelman, Franklin C. Miller

President Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling while the war in Ukraine has raged, along with lurid nuclear threats by Russian officials and propagandists, have once again focused attention on NATO’s nuclear mission. As the alliance approaches a summit in Washington later this summer, it is an appropriate time to review its nuclear posture.

Focused Force: China’s Military Challenge and Australia’s Response

Putting It All Together: The 2025 Defense Budget Request, Alternative Budget Proposals, and NATO Spending

More of the Same? The Future of the Russian Military And Its Ability to Change

Strengthening the Phalanx: Layered, Comprehensive, and Distributed Air and Missile Defense in the Indo-Pacific

Inconsistent Congress: Analysis of the 2024 Defense Budget Request

Evaluate Like We Operate: Why DOD Should Evaluate Weapons Systems as Networked Force Packages, Not Individual Platforms

Extending Deterrence by Detection: The Case for Integrating Unmanned Aircraft Systems Into the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness

Beyond Precision: Maintaining America’s Strike Advantage in Great Power Conflict

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

Featured Event

Report Release Webinar: Strengthening the Phalanx: Layered, Comprehensive, and Distributed Air and Missile Defense in the Indo-Pacific

Critics Question Pentagon’s New Strategy

Iranian Sabre-Rattling Won’t Spark Arms Race, Analysts Say

China Takes Aim At U.S. Naval Might

Hopes Dim For Bold Fiscal Leadership

U.S. Can’t Fight Two Wars at the Same Time Anymore

Panetta To Offer Strategy For Cutting Military Budget

Latest Publications

Focused Force: China’s Military Challenge and Australia’s Response

Putting It All Together: The 2025 Defense Budget Request, Alternative Budget Proposals, and NATO Spending

Understanding NATO’s Concept for Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area

More of the Same? The Future of the Russian Military And Its Ability to Change

2023 Annual Report

An Ongoing and Necessary Renaissance: NATO’s Nuclear Posture