Look at the Pentagon's budget for fiscal year 2006, recently passed by Congress. The Army receives $100 billion, the Navy gets $125.6 billion, and the Air Force gets $127.5 billion. Not counting the share of the military budget that goes to the Department of Energy for nuclear weapons or the $60 billion to $70 billion that goes to "defense-wide" programs, these sums amount to 29 percent for the Army, 35 percent for the Navy, and 36 percent for the Air Force. Look ahead, in the same document, at the projected budgets for fiscal years 2007-11. These allotments do not vary by more than a single percentage point. Now look at the Pentagon's archive for fiscal year 1994, President Clinton's first budget. You see 30 percent for the Army, 36 percent for the Navy, 34 percent for the Air Force. Go back to FY 1984: It's 29 percent for the Army, 35 percent for the Navy, 36 percent for the Air Force. In fact, go back to nearly any year in the last quarter-century and you'll see the same pattern. This is no coincidence. It reflects an informal accord among the services on how to divvy up the budget, and anyone who disturbs this arrangement can count on unleashing a storm of backbiting dissent and bureaucratic warfare. (These figures do not include costs relating to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, which come out of budget supplementals.)