Politics aside, however, a military pay freeze likely would not harm the Defense Department, said Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who has analyzed various proposals to cut defense spending. “Given the fact that military and DoD civilian pay raises have exceeded raises in the private sec­tor each year for much of the past decade, and recruiting and retention are robust due to high unemployment in the private sector, a temporary freeze in non-combat compensation would not likely have an adverse effect on the military,” Harrison said in a November report