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 F-22 Program in Retrospect
August 9, 2009 • By Barry Watts • Briefs
It now appears likely that F-22 production will end with a procurement of 187 Raptors, of which 179 will be operational aircraft. The crucial moment came on July 21st, 2009,…
Near-Term Prospects for Battlefield Directed Energy
January 5, 2009 • By Tom Ehrhard, Andrew F. Krepinevich, and Barry Watts • Briefs
For more than a decade, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) has closely followed emerging technologies that, integrated with new operational concepts and organizational structures, offer the potential…
The Case for Long-Range Strike: 21st Century Scenarios
December 31, 2008 • By Barry Watts • Studies
Since 2005, US Air Force (USAF) leaders have committed themselves to fielding a new land-based, penetrating, long-range strike system (LRSS) by 2018. In March 2008, then USAF secretary Mike Wynne…
The US Defense Industrial Base: Past, Present and Future
October 15, 2008 • By Barry Watts • Studies
The emergence, during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, of a peacetime defense industry of significant proportions was an unprecedented event in the history of the American republic. Two geopolitical developments…
U.S. Combat Training, Operational Art and Strategic Competence
August 21, 2008 • By Barry Watts • Studies
Starting with the establishment of the US Navy’s Fighter Weapons School (Topgun) in late 1968, the American military Services began committing themselves to longterm, sustained investments in realistic combat training…