On Tuesday, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments will release their new report "AirSea Battle: A Point of Departure," at an event on the Senate side of the Hill, hosted by Senators Joe Lieberman and John Thune. This is the follow on to an initial paper written by CSBA's Andrew Krepinevich that examined some of the underlying assumptions driving the new joint Navy-Air Force concept intended to find ways to ensure access in the Western Pacific and the Gulf in the face of ever more capable Chinese and Iranian precision guided weapons and anti-access battle networks.
Pentagon sources tell Defense Tech CSBA is way out in front of the services on adding some much needed conceptual meat to ASB. As one source said, "right now the big think idea coming from certain services is to pour a bunch of cement in the Pacific"; referring to the idea that aircraft shelters on Guam must be hardened against potential Chinese ballistic missile attack.
Another source said some innovative ideas are in fact bubbling up: including using Air Force bombers to attack enemy subs and using the Navy's stealthy subs to attack enemy command and control networks. We'll of course be at next week's CSBA briefing and will provide you with a complete run down.
-- Greg Grant
