Publication

This report examines the Pentagon's infamously complex budgeting cycle, which is known as the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process, and ultimately recommends more effective ways to align it with US military strategy. More specifically, the text's author highlights three important ways in which the PPBE process doesn’t work as it should -- i.e., it has 1) unrealistic timelines, 2) a stove-piped modeling system, and 3) over-relies on short-term Overseas Contingency Operations funding. The author concludes that until these flaws are addressed the US Department of Defense will not be able to plan its future budgets rationally, and therefore will have to endure additional and unnecessary risk.