Center for Strategic and International Studies

  • Defense Secretary Ash Carter told the Navy to cut back on capacity and invest more in capability in a letter last week.

    December 21, 2015
  • Based on the work of two study groups, the Pentagon is likely to ask Congress to revise two key statutes underlying its personnel management system for military officers: the Goldwater-Nichols Act and the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act.

    December 10, 2015
  • The Defense Department is ramping up its spending in Europe to counter Russian aggression, despite a $17 billion deficit in the fiscal 2017 budget.

    November 30, 2015
  • The Defense Logistics Agency is trying to expand the way it uses performance-based logistics to better the products used by service members.

    November 12, 2015
  • The Defense Department could be saving money and increasing efficiency with the Internet of Things, it just needs to broaden some of its ideas, states a new report.

    November 12, 2015
  • The Marine Corps’ Deputy Commandant said the investments in cyber and information warfare will make up for fewer Marines.

    October 28, 2015
  • A new study says the Defense Logistics Agency could benefit from performance-based logistics contracts, but there may be some legal barriers in the way.

    October 19, 2015
  • Identifying the details of where the Defense Department's money goes is the major contribution of new research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Steve Grundman is George Lund fellow at the Atlantic Council and former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Industrial Affairs and Installations. He spoke at the rollout event for the research project. He tells In Depth with Francis Rose his favorite part of the CSIS work is a survey of acquisition reform over the last 50 years because it shows a distinct milestone in the way acquisition reform has gone historically.

    October 06, 2015
  • The Senate will begin debate on this year's National Defense Authorization Act this week. Bloomberg reports a cloture vote is likely tomorrow, with a vote on approval after that. The House passed the conference report on the NDAA 270 to 156 Thursday. Andrew Hunter, senior fellow in the International Security Program and director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told In Depth with Francis Rose the NDAA is a big deal every year, but this year it's even bigger.

    October 05, 2015
  • A Freedom of Information Act request led to a lawsuit from a former fed at the Federal Trade Commission. Phil Reitinger is the former deputy under secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Homeland Security Department. He's now the CEO of VisionSpear LLC and a senior associate in the Strategic Technologies Program .at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He joined In Depth with Francis Rose to talk about his case and what he learned about the information he wanted and the FOIA process itself.

    September 11, 2015
  • The Army has known for a few years now its active duty end strength will have to get smaller. It's even announced the final number: 450,000. And sequestration — if it continues in fiscal 2016 — will make things worse, putting the Army on a path to an active duty force of 420,000. But the decisions on which bases those cuts will come from are now out, and many lawmakers are suddenly up in arms. Mark Cancian is a senior adviser for the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former chief of the Force and Structure and Investment Division at the Office of Management and Budget. He tells In Depth guest host Jared Serbu the Army is taking the same approach to impending budget cuts as a private company might when its workforce gets too expensive.

    July 15, 2015
  • Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, Commandant of the Coast Guard, released a new cyber strategy for his command. He says that the weakest link an agency faces in protecting its IT systems is poor cyber hygiene by employees.

    June 16, 2015
  • President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order giving agencies the ability to recommend economic sanctions against cyber attackers and their supporters. As the President signed this latest order, Congress seems closer than ever to passing a cyber information sharing bill.

    April 02, 2015
  • Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the acquisition proposals he will release on Wednesday are merely a discussion draft and he's actively seeking more input. Initial language would boost program managers' roles in the system and shave reporting requirements.

    March 24, 2015