A defense budget expert told the House Armed Services Committee today that the U.S. should rethink nuclear capabilities and modernization processes before the end of the decade. “And then we can start making some smart decisions,” Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told the panel in response to a question by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) about examining the “assumptions and goals” of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Harrison added that currently, the nuclear triad is “not yet ripe” for a more comprehensive reconsideration of budgeting for strategic forces.
While cautioning that “affordability” depends on available resources, Harrison said 30-year U.S. nuclear cost estimates compose a “small part” of overall force expenditures. The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in January 2014 released a study projecting the cost of the nuclear triad at $1 trillion over the next three decades. “We will likely spend $15 to 20 trillion on defense over that same time period, so it is a rather small part of our overall force expenditures,” Harrison said. He also noted that many nuclear-related recapitalization plans will also involve conventional programs like communications networks. Maj. Gen. James Martin, Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget, said during a Pentagon Fiscal Year 2016 budget briefing last week that the service might be required to cut the Minuteman 3 command and control modernization program if the 2011 Budget Control Act caps return. “After starting FY14 in a government shutdown and planning for a second year of sequestration, we are certainly grateful for the modest short-term budget relief that Congress provided for FY 14 and 15. It started the process of readiness recovery. It was a great start, but it wasn’t enough,” Martin said. “Under the Bipartisan Budget Act, we still had to make choices, choices that were necessary to save billions needed to live within budget limitations….We accepted risk in facility repairs and delayed important construction projects, which pushed the bow wave of unfunded projects to over $12 billion. These effects are being felt across the total force. For these reasons, we believe sequestration needs to be repealed so we can start the recovery from reduced funding levels.”
