Barry Watts
Senior Fellow
Areas of Expertise
Strategy, Net Assessment, Guided Munitions Revolution, Long-Range Precision Strike, Directed Energy, US Defense Industrial Base, Defense Acquisition, Realistic Combat Training, Military Use of Space
Biography
Prior to joining CSBA in 2002, Barry Watts headed the Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation at the Defense Department (2001-2002). Following retirement from the Air Force in 1986 until 2001, Mr. Watts was with the Northrop Grumman Analysis Center, which he directed from 1997 to 2001.
During his Air Force career, Mr. Watts flew a combat tour in Vietnam in F-4s, taught logic and philosophy at the U.S. Air Force Academy, served two tours in the Office of Net Assessment, and headed the Red Team in the Air Staff’s Project Checkmate.
Mr. Watts has written on a wide variety of military topics, including a number of CSBA monographs: Nuclear-Conventional Firebreaks and the Nuclear Taboo (2013); The Defense Industrial Base (2011, co-authored with Todd Harrison); The Revolution in Military Affairs (2011); Regaining Strategic Competence (2008, co-authored with Andrew Krepinevich); The Case for Long-Range Strike (2008); The Past and Future of the Defense Industrial Base (2008); U.S. Combat Training, Operational Art, and Strategic Competence: Problems and Opportunities (2008); Six Decades of Guided Munitions and Battle Networks (2007); U.S. Fighter Modernization (2007, co-authored with Steve Kosiak); Long-Range Strike: Imperatives, Urgency and Options (2005); and The Military Use of Space: A Diagnostic Assessment (2001).
He holds a B.S. in Mathematics from the U.S. Air Force Academy and an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh.
Author Bibliography for Barry Watts
The Evolution of Precision Strike
August 6, 2013 • By Barry Watts • Studies
This paper endeavors to address how the spread of non-nuclear (or conventional) precision munitions, along with associated sensors and targeting networks, may alter the conduct of war over the next…
Nuclear-Conventional Firebreaks and the Nuclear Taboo
April 18, 2013 • By Barry Watts • Studies
This study offers insights into the motivations of countries to acquire nuclear weapons, and how those countries view the role of nuclear weapons in their military and national security strategy.
Can the Aging U.S. Air Force Modernize?
September 26, 2012 • By Barry Watts and James G. Roche • Analysis
In an era of fiscal austerity, the investment decisions the U.S. military services make in the coming years must give others pause as they consider military competition or conflict with the United States. For the Air Force, this means preserving a highly credible capability to strike any targets anywhere on the globe while recapitalizing its aging inventory of combat aircraft.
DOD Must Protect Industrial Base
December 14, 2011 • By Barry Watts and Todd Harrison • Analysis
As sequestration looks more likely by the day, the Defense Department faces the challenge of a new fiscal reality. After more than a decade of increasing budgets, the Pentagon has…
The Defense Industrial Base: A National Security Imperative
October 24, 2011 • By Barry Watts • Testimony
Chairman Shuster, Mr. Larsen, and Members of the Defense Business Panel, thank you for inviting me to testify at today’s hearing on the imperative to preserve essential elements of U.S….