In this op-ed, Mark Cancian breaks down the $106 billion of supplemental funding the Biden administration has requested to provide support to Israel and Ukraine in new ways – with hopes it can help break the Congressional logjam.
A lot of money considered to be “aid to Ukraine” is actually spent in the US. In this op ed, Mark Cancian argues that eliminating that funding would be bad business for both Ukraine and American interests.
Congress should not shoot the messenger, but help the Navy and Marine Corps explain why 31 amphibs is the right number, CSIS’s Mark Cancian argues in this op-ed.
Ukraine appears to have struck Russia in Crimea twice this month. But how they actually pulled it off is a mystery worth unraveling, writes Mark Cancian of CSIS.
Last month’s update to the Marine Corps strategic guidance included many changes from the original document. Mark Cancian of CSIS goes in depth on what shifted, and why it matters.
“DoD is taking the attitude towards violent extremism that the Supreme Court took towards pornography; they will know it when they see it,” writes Mark Cancian. “That was not a useful legal test for pornography, and DoD will run into the same problem.”
The message was clear, from the mouths of military officials, the State Department and President Joe Biden himself: Aug. 30 marked the official end of the US war in Afghanistan. But, as Mark Cancian writes below, just because the US has decided it is done with Afghanistan does not mean Afghanistan is done with…
As the US spends its final hours in Afghanistan, Mark Cancian of CSIS notes that more contractors have died (8,000) than US service members (7,000) in post 9/11 operations.
Buried within the Navy’s fiscal 2022 shipbuilding plan is a major disruption of the amphibious fleet and its industrial base. The Navy will build the Light Amphibious Ships (LAWs) it wants, but there’s a trade-off. The number of large amphibious ships will decline by five to nine — 15% to 27%. Marines and others had…
Most observers had expected an increase in the Navy’s shipbuilding accounts with this budget, especially after the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said that, even as an Army general, he would support budget increases for the Navy and Air Force in light of the Chinese threat. But this budget decommissions 12 ships and buys relatively few replacements.
Mark Cancian and Chris Park of CSIS break down what is in this year’s unfunded priority lists and what they say about the state of the US military.
By Mark Cancian and Chris Park