Defense in Hard Times: Budget Pressure, High Demand, and Defense Transformation in the Obama Administration

The Obama Administration’s unprecedented retention of Bush Secretary of Defense Robert Gates paved the way for dramatic cuts to defense programs in the first few months of the Administration. This paper analyzes the process of developing and presenting the revised defense budget for Fiscal Year 2010. Following the approach of Eugene Bardach, as elaborated by Michael Barzelay, it develops an extrapolation-oriented case study of this episode, identifying the process context factors and process design features that activated or impeded causal mechanisms influential in this case. Consistent with Bardach’s “craftsmanship” approach, the paper closes with reflections on lessons learned from the case for application elsewhere.