The administration is requesting $329 billion for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Many Democrats have already said that the figure is too high; many Republicans, on the other hand, want to spend the money on different parts of the military, and many at the Pentagon say the figure is tens of billions shy of what they need to modernize the military and build a missile defense system.

Although the results of Positive Match are contained in a report stamped ''Secret,'' a half-dozen senior Defense Department and military officials agreed to discuss the war game on the condition that they not be identified.

Among the situations in the war game, commanders tested whether the armed forces could decisively defeat one potential adversary, North Korea, while repelling an attack from Iraq. The planners also looked at how military operations would be affected if another event, such as terrorists attacking New York City with chemical weapons, took place at the same time.

The official report on Positive Match said the men and women of the armed forces were subject to ''a high level of moderate risk'' in carrying out the new strategy, which was acceptable to the commanders.

Had they been ordered to carry out the old strategy -- to win decisively in two theaters almost simultaneously -- the risk would have been extremely high and would have been unacceptable to the commanders. Lowering the risk would have required increasing the budget to pay for more troops and weapons, or finding some significantly new, efficient way to fight.

To be sure, Positive Match, which was conducted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the war fighting commanders, found serious shortages in strategic lift to move forces around the globe and in the broad area of communications and intelligence, officials said. Even so, the findings have allowed a consensus to emerge, with all parties to the debate able to claim victory.

For several months, the central argument at the Pentagon had been over whether America could risk cutting its forces now to finance expensive new weapons the administration says would counter threats emerging in decades to come.