The Realist Prism: Politics, Strategy and U.S. Defense Budgets

On Monday, during the final presidential debate, President Barack Obama proclaimed that his defense budgets were "driven by strategy. [They’re] not driven by politics."

In theory, Obama is correct. Defense budgeting is supposed to be a rational exercise that assesses threats and needs, and then fills in the gaps. As Sean Sullivan, a leading expert on defense resource allocation issues at the Naval War College, told me in a conversation on the subject, “Defense planning processes are specifically designed to use strategy as guidance for force programming and budget decisions, thereby linking the ends with the means.” ...