June 24, 2020
The Bottom Line
Although lawmakers and the public frequently debate the size of the U.S. defense budget, a fundamental question usually receives less attention: What does U.S. military spending say about America's national security priorities? Expert Susanna V. Blume explains how U.S. strategic principles should drive key decisions in defense spending.
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Podcast
Building the World’s Biggest Budget
What do the Pentagon's decisions about military spending say about our priorities as a nation? What goes into the DoD's $700 billion budget each year? Former Pentagon official...
Commentary
What Congress Should Do with the 2020 Defense Budget
Summary There are many things that the administration’s 2020 defense budget request gets right. However, the proposal remains too focused on both the size of the joint force a...
Commentary
Dear Pentagon: It’s Not How Big Your Budget Is. It’s How You Use It.
Over the past two months, unusually public negotiations between the White House and the U.S. Department of Defense on the 2020 defense budget request have bounced from $733 bi...
Reports
Rising to the China Challenge
The United States and China are locked in strategic competition over the future of the Indo-Pacific—the most populous, dynamic, and consequential region in the world....
Reports
Make Good Choices, DoD
In a new report, Susanna V. Blume and Molly Parrish offer a deep dive into how the U.S. Department of Defense makes decisions about what the U.S. military needs, what to buy a...
Reports
Strategy to Ask
Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan promised a “masterpiece” for 2020. The critical question this report asks is: Has he made good on that promise?...
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The Ever-Changing, Unchanged Defense Acquisition System
Commentary
Introduction The defense acquisition system has been and continues to be in a period of great change, both in terms of the laws and processes that govern it and the private se...
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Are Defense Firms Showering Their Shareholders with Too Much Money?
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In early January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening bans on defense contractors paying dividends or buying their stock back. CNAS program director S...
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In a week when airpower news came from every angle, Becca Wasser, CNAS adjunct senior fellow, was on top of it all. She leads defense research at Bloomberg Economics, and we c...
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Balance of Power: Powell Probe Sparks GOP Backlash
Podcast
President Donald Trump faced rare opposition from key Republican lawmakers after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell accused the Department of Justice of launching a grand jur...
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