Defense and National Security
- Report
Availability, Use, and Operating and Support Costs of F-35 Fighter Aircraft
CBO analyzes the recent availability, use, and operating and support costs of F-35 fighter aircraft. As F-35s have aged, their availability and use have decreased and have been lower than those of other fighter aircraft of the same age.
- Interactive
CBO’s Interactive Force Structure Tool
This tool allows the user to see the effects on the Department of Defense's total operation and support costs and on the size of the military of adding or subtracting tanks, ships, aircraft, and other units.
- Report
The U.S. Military’s Force Structure: Fiscal Year 2025 Update to Personnel Numbers and Costs
This spreadsheet provides the data that underlie CBO’s interactive force structure tool.
- Report
Effects of Lower Launch Costs on Previous Estimates for Space-Based, Boost-Phase Missile Defense
CBO estimates how declines in the costs of launch services would change previous estimates of the costs to deploy a constellation of space-based interceptors designed to defeat intercontinental ballistic missiles fired at the United States.
- Cost Estimate
Reconciliation Recommendations of the House Committee on Armed Services
As ordered reported on April 29, 2025
- Presentation
Trends in Spending for Military Compensation
Presentation by F. M. Woodward, an analyst in CBO's National Security Division, at the Defense Manpower Roundtable.
- Report
Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2025 to 2034
CBO estimates that plans for U.S. nuclear forces, as described in the fiscal year 2025 budget and supporting documents, would cost $946 billion over the 2025–2034 period, $190 billion more than CBO's 2023 estimate for the 2023–2032 period.
- Report
Answers to Questions for the Record Following a Hearing on the Navy’s 2025 Shipbuilding Plan and Its Implications for the Shipbuilding Industrial Base
The House Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces convened a hearing at which Eric J. Labs, CBO's Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons, testified. This document provides CBO’s answers to questions submitted for the record.
- Report
Testimony on the Navy’s 2025 Shipbuilding Plan and Its Implications for the Shipbuilding Industrial Base
Eric J. Labs, Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons in CBO’s National Security Division, testifies before the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces.
- Cost Estimate
H.R. 1048, DETERRENT Act
As ordered reported by the House Committee on Education and Workforce on February 12, 2025