ndupress.ndu.edu SF No. 287 1
O
n February 13, 1989, General Colin Powell, who was in a transition
between National Security Advisor and Commander of U.S. Army
Forces Command, addressed the reality of strategy: “All of the so-
phisticated talk about grand strategy is helpful, but show me your budgets and
I will tell you what your strategy is.”
1
What General Powell meant is that the
denition of the U.S. role in the world and its strategic goals ow from bud-
gets, not the other way around. is paper eshes out General Powell’s obser-
vation by focusing on the means part of the ends, ways, and means of strategy
in order to explain how austerity aects force planning and strategy. By rst
examining budget reductions as a general matter, the paper describes today’s
austere U.S. budgetary environment. It concludes with the current strategic
options that will likely characterize the contemporary discussion of strategy
and force planning.
Decremental Spending
e defense budget system works most smoothly, of course, when budgets
are growing, not shrinking.
2
In the 63 years of Department of Defense (DOD)
budgets, the budget grew in 49 of those years.
3
With one year’s budget providing
the base from which the next year’s increase takes o, increasing budgets do not
demand strategic reassessments. Budget debates concentrate on where best to
allocate any incremental increases. Decreasing budgets obviously are more chal-
lenging than increasing budgets. ey require the articulation of a strategy, but that
rarely happens, and even more rarely does strategy shape budgets. Rather, bureau-
cratic inghting tends to result in across-the-board, rather than tailored, budget
cuts. With decremental spending, there is rarely an obvious reduction of strategic
ends to guide the reduction in means. As budget expert Allen Schick explains,
“Decrementalism diverges from incrementalism in at least three signicant ways.
Strategy and Force Planning
in a Time of Austerity
By Michael J. Meese
Strategic Forum
National Defense University
About the Author
Brigadier General Michael J. Meese,
Ph.D., USA (Ret.), is a Visiting
Distinguished Research Fellow in
the Center for Strategic Research,
Institute for National Strategic
Studies, at the National Defense
University and is the Chief Operating
Ofcer at the American Armed Forces
Mutual Aid Association. An adapted
version of this paper will appear in
American Grand Strategy and the
Future of U.S. Land Power
(Strategic
Studies Institute, forthcoming).
Key Points
Force planning and defense
budgeting processes that may work
well with spending increases have
signicant problems with budget
reductions under austerity.
The current U.S. scal crisis
and political polarization make
strategic planning and defense
decisionmaking difcult.
As part of strategy, defense leaders
need to engage in a credible
dialogue about austerity, to
include discussing scal policy and
nondefense spending.
May 2014
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC RESEARCH
