Articles & Multimedia
Showing 1-19 of 19 Publications
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Trump, Racism, and the Military
Commentary
Throughout his administration, President Trump has misused the US military to advance his racist and discriminatory political priorities. He has used the Department of Defense...
By Susanna V. Blume
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Let Them Work From Home
Commentary
Earlier this week Defense One reported that senior military service branch representatives requested a one-month delay in the submission of their annual budgets, arguing that ...
By Susanna V. Blume
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Interservice rivalries: A force for good
It’s no secret that the military services fight hard to protect their shares of the defense budget. Just last week, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday made his case...
By Susanna V. Blume & Molly Parrish
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The state of acquisition is in need of better coordination
Commentary
The U.S. defense enterprise has been in a near-constant state of acquisition reform since the 1980s. Although it has been a top Pentagon priority, expected competition with Ch...
By Susanna V. Blume & Mikhail Grinberg
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Fireside Chat with The Honorable David L. Norquist
On May 30, the Center welcomed The Honorable David L. Norquist for a conversation on the 2020 Defense Budget Request with Susanna V. Blume. Their discussion focused on whether...
By Susanna V. Blume & David L. Norquist
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What Congress Should Do with the 2020 Defense Budget
Commentary
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...
By Susanna V. Blume
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What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Defense Budget Masterpiece
In December of 2017, before the Department of Defense released its 2019 budget request, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan tried to manage expectations about it...
By Susanna V. Blume & Chris Dougherty
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Dear Pentagon: It’s Not How Big Your Budget Is. It’s How You Use It.
Commentary
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...
By Susanna V. Blume
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Numbers game: How the Air Force is following the Army and Navy’s bad example
Commentary
On Sept. 17, Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson stole a page from the Army and the Navy, announcing that the Air Force needed to grow its number of operational squadron...
By Susanna V. Blume
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What's Wrong with the Defense Department's 2019 Budget Request - and What Congress Can Do to Fix It
The Trump administration had a rare opportunity in the 2019 planning and budgeting cycle. For most of its time in office, the Obama administration requested more for defense t...
By Susanna V. Blume
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The True Cost of Trump’s National Defense Strategy
Commentary
On January 20, the U.S. Department of Defense released the Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy, followed nearly a month later by the president’s budget request fo...
By Susanna V. Blume
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The new defense budget: what you need to know
Commentary
The budget agreement finally reached by Congress last Friday provides around $700 billion for national defense in fiscal years 2018 and 2019, an allocation in line with Presid...
By Susanna V. Blume
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How the United States Can Get More Strategic Bang For Its Force Structure Buck
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis released an unclassified summary of the new National Defense Strategy two weeks ago. The big news in the strategy is a front-and-center focus o...
By Susanna V. Blume
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What Does a Government Shutdown Mean for the Department of Defense?
Commentary
What happens to the Defense Department when the federal government shuts down? I can shed some light on this; in October 2013, I was a DoD civilian charged with helping to ens...
By Susanna V. Blume
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Congress, cut the continuing resolutions so Defense can do its job
Commentary
As we once again find ourselves hurtling towards the expiration of yet another continuing resolution at the end of this week, with no long-term budget deal in sight, it seems ...
By Susanna V. Blume & Lauren Fish
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In the Pentagon’s AT&L reorg, beware the Valley of Death
Commentary
The U.S. Department of Defense is in the process of reorganizing its acquisition enterprise, as directed by the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. Congress and the DoD i...
By Susanna V. Blume
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Prospects for a defense budget deal
Commentary
Susanna joins Government Matters TV to offer insight into negotiations over the National Defense Authorization Act. Watch the conversation here....
By Susanna V. Blume
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Trump Can't Just Walk Away From the Iran Deal. It's Not an Atlantic City Casino.
Commentary
Last November, the election results indicated that the nation was disappointed with the performance of its politicians, and so it decided to bring in a property developer and ...
By Susanna V. Blume
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CNAS Commentary: Prospects for a Defense Budget Deal
Commentary
Washington, October 6 – With Congress on the hook to pass a budget for the coming year and the prospect that budget instability could do real harm to U.S. national security, C...
By Susanna V. Blume
