ABSTRACT
Theories of military expenditures in the United States have tended to focus thus far only on the aggregate level of spending while paying almost no attention to the distribution of department of defense (DoD) resources across the subcomponents of the budget. The subcomponents of the DoD budget are military personnel, operation and maintenance, military procurement, and research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E). RDT&E budgeting is strongly influenced by international crises in which the United States is directly involved, public opinion, and corporate profits and is less sensitive to the political control of the White House, presidential elections, unemployment and wars. Wars have a considerable impact on nonincrementai DoD procurement and manpower spending and relatively insignificant short term impact on the research and development component of the DoD budget. According to Administration officials, the defense budget presented to Congress by the Administration was designed to arrest the relative decline in US military power in the 1970s.
