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

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.

Briefs

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.”

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

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

December 9, 2024 Travis Sharp

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.

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

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

January 13, 2025 Toshi Yoshihara, Jack Bianchi, Casey Nicastro

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.

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

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

January 17, 2024 Carl Rehberg, Herbert Kemp

One of the most critical operational challenges the United States is likely to confront in a future conflict, particularly in the Indo-Pacific theater, is the threat of massed precision-guided air and missile attacks on overseas ports, bases, and other vital facilities. DoD has invested significant resources to defend against ballistic missile attacks on the United States, as well as its forward bases and forward-operating forces. However, it cannot still defeat large numbers of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial systems.

See all Forces & Capabilities 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

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

Resources

Strategy & Policy

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

Budget & Resources

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

Future Warfare & Concepts

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

Forces & Capabilities

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

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