Until 1984, the amount appearing in the DoD budget under "military retirement" was the annual payment to retired military personnel or their survivors--equaling approximately $16 billion that year. That amount reflected the number of retirees and the retirement system that resulted from force-management decisions made 20 or more years earlier. Those managing the personnel force in 1984 essentially had no control over these retirement-budget payments. Similarly, force managers in 1984 could make decisions influencing future retirement expenditures without answering for them in their own budgets. Policymakers were concerned that this system could result in increasingly expensive retirement plans, a more senior force, more retirees than justified by force-readiness considerations, and poor decisions involving substitution of civilian and military personnel and between capital and labor investments.