Military Personnel

Long-Term Implications of the Future Years Defense Program

In most years, the Department of Defense (DoD) provides a five-year plan, called the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), associated with the budget that it submits to the Congress. Because decisions made in the near term can have consequences for the defense budget well beyond that period, CBO regularly examines DoD’s FYDP and projects its budgetary impact roughly a decade beyond the period covered by the FYDP.

The U.S. Military’s Force Structure

CBO periodically calculates operating costs and personnel numbers for every unit in the U.S. armed forces, using information from the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) five-year budget plans. Those numbers appear in CBO's force structure primer, a reference report that describes the size, costs, and functions of every major element of the military's force structure. Those numbers also underlie CBO's Interactive Force Structure Tool. The tool allows users to add or subtract brigades, ships, aircraft squadrons, and other units to see how such changes would affect DoD’s total operation and support costs and the size of the military.