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Observers often complain that Congress slights defense oversight. Their conclusions, however, are typically based on the assumption that the House and Senate will act like bureaucracies capable of comprehensive, systematic, and dispassionate oversight. Yet Congress is a political institution, and its ability to oversee defense issues is limited by its institutional makeup and by the nature of defense policy. As a result, the tendency to treat Congress as if it were a bureaucracy produces inflated expectations about congressional oversight. It also obscures the incentives that encourage legislators to conduct oversight-namely, parochialism, ambition, and duty. Although Congress does more oversight than critics acknowledge, congressional oversight is not flawless. Most reform proposals focus on structural changes at the Pentagon or on Capitol Hill. The key to improving congressional oversight, however, lies in reducing the ideological bias of the defense committees.

Some problems created by the committee system.

Legislative delay, the erosion of the committee system, micromanagement and related problems with congressional decisionmaking.

Congressional decision making on defense policy has evolved through three distinctive styles since 1961 because of changes in the opportunities, incentives, and freedom for lawmakers to address defense issues. In the 1960s, decision making in Congress was an "inside game": the most senior members of the defense committees-the two Armed Services committees and the two Appropriations Defense subcommittees-dominated the debate. In the 1970s, the congressional reform movement dispersed power in Congress and ushered in a decentralized variant of the inside game. Finally, in the 1980s an "outside game" emerged as congressional activity increasingly has bypassed the traditional channels of power within the defense committees. This new decision-making style has made the defense debate on Capitol Hill more representative of the views of its members and encouraged debate on a broader range of defense issues. Notwithstanding, the outside game also has produced delays in the budgetary process, an erosion of the committee system, and increased micromanagement of the defense budget. Congress is not likely to adopt reforms that will remedy these problems.

Changes related to the annual authorization process, political volatility, and congressional reforms in the 1970s.

Success at forcing target country to change its policies. Cost; success in terms of compliance, subversion, deterrence, international symbolism, and domestic symbolism.