"On this episode of the DefAero Report Daily Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests, from WestExec Advisors, Michèle Flournoy and Gabrielle Chefitz, co-authors of the CNAS report: 'Sharpening the U.S. Military’s Edge: Critical Steps for the Next Administration' discuss key points from the report and offer their advice to future national security leaders on the urgent agenda needed moving forward..." Listen to the full episode here: Full Episode

"On July 27, 2020, the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) hosted a conversation about the progress the Department of Defense, Congress, and the private sector have made to ensure the U.S. military can develop, access, and field innovative technologies. More importantly, panelists discussed what work remains to be done in order to ensure that the joint force retains its technological edge..." Watch the full event here: Full Event

"The next U.S. administration will face an increasingly emboldened and aggressive China — one that has shown a growing willingness to use coercive measures to stake its territorial claims from the South China Sea to Taiwan to the Indian border region. Although neither Washington nor Beijing wants a war, there is a real risk that miscalculation could cause a crisis to spiral into a conflict between these two nuclear-armed powers. "To prevent conflict, the United States must maintain the military capability [...]

"The U.S. military is at a high-stakes inflection point: it must take a series of much bigger and bolder steps to keep its military-technological edge over great power competitors such as China, or it could lose that edge within the decade. If the Pentagon’s own reported wargames and analysis are to be believed, the planned force that is enshrined in the current Department of Defense (DoD) program and budget may well be insufficient to deter or defeat Chinese aggression in the [...]

"Recent defense budget hearings saw a series of heated exchanges between lawmakers and Department of Defense leaders over plans to reach a 355-ship Navy by 2030. This political debate over the path to 355 is focused on precisely the wrong metric. It is a distraction from the difficult but urgent and necessary trade-offs the United States must make to prepare for a far more contested and lethal future security environment. "In a world where defense budgets will plateau or shrink, the [...]