This aisle provides materials related to the resourcing side of defense management. How does the military craft a budget that it sends (and defends) to Congress? How does Congress in turn authorize and appropriate funds for the military to spend? What happens when resource levels differ from what the military requested (and it can sometimes be too much budget authority, which is equally problematic as too little!).

The DoD’s requirements are complex, requiring a robust system to identify resourcing requirements, providing those requirements to Congress, distributing appropriations as granted by Congress, and ensuring the proper execution and reporting of those resources. This is done through the DoD’s Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) system, the strategic decision-making system for resource planning and allocation across the U.S. military. PPBE allows leaders to visualize the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars to the military departments and DoD agencies to procure and sustain goods and services–ranging from human resource management to weapon systems procurement, from training and exercises to equipping and servicing, from logistics to facilities and installation support. The letters PPBE represent four interdependent activities: (1) translating strategic plans to requirements, (2) translating requirements to programs, (3) establishing the funding required to satisfy the requirements, and (4) spending the funds appropriated by Congress to generate the required capabilities. The system allows DoD leaders to manage the volume of requirements and the needs of a large multitude of stakeholders, while also allowing DoD to respond when Congress appropriates funds differently from what DoD requested through the budgeting process. This occurs frequently.

Front and center are the planning, programming, and budgeting processes as they may be relatively new to budding senior leaders. The resources here provide information about how resource decisions are made at the department level and how all senior leaders and their advisers can and must participate in them. It also presents the underlying concepts of efficiency, which is different in public sector organizations than in the private sector. The different meaning of efficiency can drive behaviors that many would consider both inefficient and ineffective, complicating the resource decision-making process.

With execution at the senior leader level, the concept of financial management becomes far more complex than at unit level. Whether spending changes are intentional good ideas or unintentional consequences of circumstances, when aggregated at the service and department level they can add up to become major financial issues. Senior leaders and their advisers must actively engage in the details of financial management to ensure every dollar is visible, operationally effective, and wisely spent on the highest priority requirements.

This aisle covers a wide range of resource management readings and resources in the areas of financial management, the programming and budgeting processes (along with PPBE), and spending & cost analyses. It also includes a library of previous years’ budget requests and posture hearings. Currently all the resources are allocated to the various shelves below, but we encourage reader to contribute added resources when available.

​​​​​​​– Bryan Wood and Tom Galvin

Faculty Publications:

• Waters, Douglas. “May the Force Resource You: A New Way to Budget,” WAR ROOM, May 23, 2017, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/may-force-resource-new-way-budget/

Laws, Policies, Memos, and Regulations (sorted by regulation number):

• Joint Publication 3-80, Resource Management, 2016.

Strategies and Reports:

• None.

Commentaries (inclusion does not represent endorsement):

• None.

Racks in this Aisle:

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Title image credit:  U.S. Defense Contract Management Agency​​​​​​​ via their website​​​​​​​, public domain.