The Pentagon is likely to be dealt another budget heartbreak in December.

Military leaders have made it crystal clear for months that they want Congress to lift a Budget Control Act spending cap for defense and pass a 2018 budget that allows the services to start new programs, buy spare parts and contract for fighter jets and other hardware.

“We at every opportunity try to convince people that BCA and [continuing resolutions] are not the way to go here,” Gen. Mark Milley, the Army chief of staff, told the Washington Examiner.

But lawmakers appear poised to pass another stopgap continuing resolution, or CR, on Dec. 8 that would keep the lights on at the Pentagon but also keep the military’s financial plans in limbo for weeks or months longer. It is operating under a stopgap measure passed in September when the fiscal year 2017 budget expired.

Another CR is almost certain because Congress is again running out of time to pass an overarching deal to fund the government when the current measure expires in less than three weeks, according to defense budget analysts.

“Basically, the CR will fall into one of two options: It’ll either be a short-term of two or three weeks up until around Christmas if they think they can get [a deal] done by then,” said Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “If they don’t think they are going to get it done by then, they probably go for about a two-month CR and kick it into February.”

The extra time is also needed for Congress to decide on how to fund a $700 billion National Defense Authorization Act passed last week. The military cannot buy any of the additional aircraft, ships and troops authorized in the annual policy bill until a spending deal is hashed out and passed.

A budget punt with another continuing resolution is not what the Pentagon wanted.

“It's just a waste of money and we need to be able to plan in advance,” Chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said.

White has been using her weekly press briefings to point out the military has operated under a continuing resolution for more than 1,000 days during the past decade, which she says delays needed maintenance and causes anxiety in the defense industrial base.

“We need Congress to pass a robust and predictable budget,” she said. “We need an FY18 appropriations budget before Dec. 8.”