10: Defense-Industrial Base Studies

Provide unvarnished analysis of the complex relationship between the Defense Department, the defense industry, and the public interest in a time of growing fiscal constraints.

Other Information:

Secretary Gates' Efficiency Initiative has sought to find efficiencies in the department and apply savings to more deserving projects. Decisionmakers in Congress, the Executive Branch, and industry rely on CSIS to provide independent analysis and research to inform their thinking. CSIS was asked by Dr. Ashton Carter (pictured on opposite page), under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics to host a series of dialogues with the defense industry entitled "Delivering Better Acquisition Value: Conversations with Industry." This past year CSIS also completed work on a review of the importance of the commercial space sector to U.S. national security and provided a framework for analyzing and evaluating options to improve access to commercial launch services. The success of this project led the Department of the Navy to ask CSIS to apply this innovative framework for analyzing the defense-industrial base, and this coming year CSIS will conduct a similar review of the shipbuilding industry. Projects like these build on the CSIS core capability to analyze defense budgets and industry.

Stakeholder(s):

• Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group (DIIG): CSIS's Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group (DIIG) provides unvarnished analysis of the complex relationship between the Defense Department, the defense industry, and the public interest in a time of growing fiscal constraints.

Objective(s):

1

Content