A Cybernetic Model of the US Defense Expenditure Policymaking Process

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Abstract
The observation that US military expenditures are largely a function of internal, domestic factors is increasingly becoming a part of the conventional wisdom. This result is counterintuitive, particularly when compared with the statements of US defense planners. In addition, most explanations lack an explicit characterization of decisionmaking and decisionmakers. This article addresses these twin problems by developing a model of US defense expenditure policymaking which is based upon the following principles of cybernetic behavior: (a) decisionmakers are boundedly rational; (b) they respond to a limited number of environmental factors in a hierarchic fashion; and (c) the structure of this hierarchy is a function of “survival” considerations. A multiactor, multistage model is operationalized and tested for the period of Fiscal Years 1947–1980. This article concludes that the hierarchic search structure posited by the cybernetic approach is a reasonable approximation to the behavior of the major actors in the US defense expenditure process.

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