Center for a New American Security

Travis Sharpe better watch out, because Shawn Brimley used to sit in his comfortable perch at CNAS and write all kinds of sensible stuff about the budget and the QDR, and look where it got him: in charge of the latter. That hasn't stopped Travis from writing this timely primer on the QDR and the new defense budget, which you can read here.

Steve Biddle, in typically intelligent analysis, considers a "double transformation":

Ironically, the traditionalists are right about tomorrow, but the young Turks are right about today.

From Inside Defense:

The Washington Post:

I am not the pro's pro on the defense budget, but Michael O'Hanlon's worry in today's Post seems warranted.

My man Yochi Dreazen (C '99) has just been cold interviewin' the Secretary of Defense lately. Here is the SecDef on weapons cuts, and here he is on Afghanistan.

American public support for the Afghan war will dissipate in less than a year unless the Obama administration achieves "a perceptible shift in momentum," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview.

And read the prepared statements of John Hamre -- rumored to be the next Secretary of Defense -- and Andrew Krepinevich on the defense budget. I know Hamre admires Gates, but interestingly, he feels Gates is spending too much on personnel costs at the expense of weapons modernization.

To: ahoymatey@hotmail.so

From: secdef@osd.mil

Subject: Thanks!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21293.html

Those Navy snipers off the coast of Somalia might have done more than simply rescue an American ship captain.

They’re also giving Defense Secretary Robert Gates a new argument for his plan to steer Pentagon spending toward small-scale fights and dial back the Pentagon’s focus on multibillion-dollar weapons.

Looking back, it was a serious mistake of me to have been talking about the budget without simultaneously talking about the article written by my friend Mike Horowitz and Dan Shalmon in the most recent issue of Strategy, budget

Last week, I gave some space on the blog to Tom Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute to raise concerns about the defense budget.