ABSTRACT
The 11 September terrorist attacks on New York and Washington fixed the spotlight on the leadership potential of President George W. Bush. This chapter explores the question of how critical George W. Bush was, first as candidate Bush, and then as President Bush, in shaping budgetary priorities, the budget and subsequent funding. Such analysis provides another means to assess Bush's leadership, particularly with respect to the war on terror. Examination of Bush's stated defense and national security budget priorities as a candidate, and his ability or inability to deliver on them, offers a preliminary look at what would become Bush's national security doctrine and what would soon influence his conduct of the war on terror. Moreover, these matters have been noticeably absent from analysis of Bush's wartime leadership or the war on terror. The global environment in which Bush would have to operate post-11 September included an unmistakable transnational element since al-Qaeda represented at its core a transnational terrorist threat.
