Stable Service Shares

We’ve noted how robust the service shares are—for political reasons within the Pentagon.  Given the new defense strategy’s call for cuts to Army and Marines endstrength, many had assumed the service shares would be broken.  Today’s budget roll-out skewered that assumption as the Army’s share of the base budget actually increased by a small margin.  

Some of that stability this year comes just from the complexity of the defense budget.  As Under Secretary Hale said in the press conference, there are a lot of moving pieces.  Still, we probably shouldn’t discount the political reasons if we hope to understand what’s happening.