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
Six Decades of Guided Munitions and Battle Networks: Progress and Prospects
March 1, 2007 • By Barry Watts • Studies
The research and analysis underlying this report began in 2003 and aimed at answering the following question. How has the maturation of non-nuclear guided munitions during the late 1980s and…
Long-Range Strike: Imperatives, Urgency and Options
April 6, 2005 • By Barry Watts • Studies
This report has two main thrusts: first, to articulate the prospective role of long-range strike (LRS) in future US military strategy; and, second, to explore American LRS needs in the…
Meeting the Anti-Access and Area-Denial Challenge
May 20, 2003 • By Andrew F. Krepinevich, Robert Work, and Barry Watts • Studies
This report looks at the US military services struggling to adapt to an expeditionary era. This expeditionary era has emerged from two defining developments. First, due to the collapse of…
The Military Use of Space: A Diagnostic Assessment
February 1, 2001 • By Barry Watts • Studies
The principal aim of this report is to assess the evolving capabilities of nations and other actors to exploit near-earth space for military purposes over the next 20-25 years. The…