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Three Decades at a Glance Congress and the Administration are considering numerous options for addressing the nation’s fiscal crisis while maintaining a strong and adequately resourced national security—comprised of both military and civilian investments. It is often not understood that as a consequence of the shift to include all international affairs funding in base budget requests, recent calls to return to earlier (e.g. 2008) funding levels would disproportionately cut international affairs if the supplemental funding is not accounted for in those earlier funding levels. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS BUDGET IS A CRITICAL COMPONENT OF NATIONAL SECURITY FUNDING
Since 2007 under President George W. Bush, every Administration’s annual budget request has presented the International Affairs Budget as part of the United States’ comprehensive funding for national security. President Bush noted in his 2008 submission that “Enhanced diplomatic efforts will work to support our national security goals with additional resources dedicated to strengthen democratic institutions, promote economic opportunity, and improve self-sufficiency while also building the capacity of our allies to contribute to this effort, through key anti-terrorism and security assistance initiatives.” More recently, President Obama observed that his 2011 budget request recognized “that diplomacy and development activities are instrumental in promoting U.S. National Security interests and provides critical funding necessary to support greater civilian capacity to meet expanded roles.” As Members of Congress and policymakers grapple with very constrained budgets in the years ahead, a strong, integrated, and multi-faceted strategy to pursue U.S. national security goals must be backed by budget allocations that ensure strong and effective Defense, International Affairs, Homeland Security and Veterans programs as fundamental pillars of protecting U.S. national security priorities.