A History of the Strategic Implications of the Great Recession and Its Aftermath on U.S. National Defense
Abstract
From December 2007 through June 2009, the Great Recession brought the worst economic downturn in terms of overall U.S. production, consumption, and investment since the end of the Second World War. While the Great Recession was a result of a contraction in the U.S. housing market and its ripple effects through the financial sector and beyond, it produced economic contractions around the globe. The Great Recession also affected the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), but its impact was delayed and indirect relative to immediate changes in unemployment and gross domestic product (GDP). Between 2007 and 2009, the DoD acknowledged the ongoing recession, but focused its attention on the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, in 2007, during the first year of the Great Recession, large parts of the DoD were consumed instead with the Surge of troops in Iraq and the swirling debates surrounding it. The U.S. economy officially exited the Great Recession as GDP growth resumed in June 2009, yet political debates over federal spending as a result of the Great Recession set the stage for increasing fiscal constraint across the federal government, including the DoD, for the years to come. The primary indirect effect of the Great Recession on the DoD was a change in the U.S. domestic political scene in the fall of 2010 that ushered in a new Congress that emphasized fiscal restraint and reigning in the ever-increasing national debt. As a result, reductions in spending across the entire government became an imperative for Congress and something that the Obama administration could not ignore. For the DoDs senior civilian and uniformed leadership, the years ahead would prove to be a time of back-and-forth negotiations with Congress to reduce spending but at the same time still provide the needed military forces to carry out the nations evolving defense priorities.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1199981
Entities
People
- Adam Givens
- Benjamin J. Sacks
- Gian Gentile
- Nathaniel Edenfield
- Stephanie Young
Organizations
- RAND Corporation