After the 1974 congressional elections swept into office a wave of reform-minded liberals bent on shaking up the House of Representatives, Representative James “Jimmy” Burke (D-MA) – then the third-ranking Democrat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee – blithely dismissed the insurgents’ plan to use the rules of the House to carry out what was, in effect, an internal coup against the established power structure. As he walked out of one of the newcomers’ planning sessions, Burke scoffed: “You people think this place is on the level.”

It is the contrarian thrust of this chapter that, more often – and with greater consequence – than generally is believed, Congress operates more or less on the level in its oversight of the defense establishment. This is to say, acting chiefly through the committees that deal with the Department of Defense (DOD) budget, Congress functions as – among other things – a deliberative body, exercising relatively effective oversight of the U.S. defense establishment. Moreover, some of the committees’ efforts to modify the behavior of the defense establishment are sufficiently ambitious to be regarded as policy initiatives.