A little noticed exchange from Gates’ Monday press conference about the new defense budget proposals:

Q     Can you tell us a little bit more, Mr. Secretary, about the analysis that went into these decisions? Even over the weekend there was some criticism that such bold decisions before the QDR, before this top-to-bottom review, perhaps don’t have the analytical framework that would be required Can you give us sort of the 1-2 about how this all was put together?

SEC. GATES: Well, first of all, I think that there is a very sound analytical basis for these decisions because they emanate directly from the National Defense Strategy, which involved a great deal of analysis on the part of both the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff and the Joint Chiefs. So there is a strong analytical base.

In other words, the intellectual foundation of the new defense budget is the 2008 National Defense Strategy, drafted by Bush appointees and approved by the Bush White House.  It is genuinely surprising to see something like this happen.  Obama is going to take a lot of heat for some of the program cuts (even though the budget actually represents a $20 billion increase from last year), and he’s doing it in order to implement Bush’s strategic framework.

A lot of us were worried that a McCain victory would be something of a Bush 3rd term.  At least on defense policy, the continuity from Bush to Obama looks be historically unprecedented.