The New Politics of the Defense Budget.
Abstract
In this paper, the author describes how and why the debate over defense resources has shifted from the turf of the threat to the turf of the deficit. That the debate becomes political is made all the more possible by the fact that the budget is not delivered to Congress in the framework of a national strategy. Instead, broad functional categories decouple resource allocation decisions from the strategic goals of national security policy. As a consequence, the political debate over the defense budget tends to be dominated by line items. Combined with the absence of a perceived threat, bureaucratic in-fighting and resource limitations, the struggle for the defense budget will be played out more visibly in the congressional arena, an arena in which short-term political exigencies dominate and often unravel the best of strategic visions. National defense budget; defense resources; political pressures; budget reform.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 30, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA255113
Entities
People
- Gordon Adams
Organizations
- United States Army War College