2014 Navy Budget Share Predictable, Not Newsworthy

Searching for any real evidence for a rebalance to the Pacific and a concomitant shift in national military strategy as reflected how the budget is allocated among the Services continues to be unsatisfying.  

Here is a table I put together of how the base defense budget has been allocated in the recent past (actual budgets 2010-1013) and projections for how the pie would be split up from 2014-2017.  The figures in this table for future years are from the 2013 budget.  All figures were rounded up or down to the nearest whole number, which is why some years do not equal 100:

	Army	Navy	Air Force	DoD
2017	24%	29%	28%	19%
2016	24%	29%	27%	19%
2015	24%	29%	27%	19%
2014	25%	29%	27%	19%
2013	25%	29%	26%	19%
2012	26%	29%	27%	18%
2011	26%	29%	27%	17%
2010	26%	29%	27%	17%

Next, I took figures from the 2014 Budget Submission as reported by DoD Buzz in an article trumpeting that fact that the “Navy” hauled in the largest budget share.  Putting aside the fact that the “Navy” has two Armed Services in its budget, the Navy has been receiving the largest slice of the pie for several years and the size of it has been fairly consistent.  Here is the table above with the 2014 line showing both the pre-FY 14 budget line and post FY 14 budget line, using the figures from the DoD Buzz story:

	Army	Navy	Air Force	DoD
2017	24%	29%	28%	19%
2016	24%	29%	27%	19%
2015	24%	29%	27%	19%
2014	25%/24%	29%/29%	27%/27%	19%/19%
2013	25%	29%	26%	19%
2012	26%	29%	27%	18%
2011	26%	29%	27%	17%
2010	26%	29%	27%	17%

Again, in the second table, the 2015-17 budgets have not been updated with figures from the 2014 budget input.  It is entirely possible that the 2014 line is just the beginning of more important shifts of money among the Services and DoD.  But don’t let anyone fool you; the 2014 budget—from the perspective of how budget shares reflect priorities—is business as usual.