LRSB, Ohio Replacement, and GBSD Could Drive Nuke Forces Cost Overruns

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments’ (CSBA) newly released projections of the cost of maintaining and modernizing U.S. nuclear forces identify the Long-Range Strike Bomber, the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine replacement, and the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) programs as the greatest drivers of potential cost overruns. These three programs “are going to drive the potential for cost overruns,” Todd Harrison, senior fellow for defense budget studies at CSBA, said yesterday upon releasing the study on the affordability of U.S. nuclear forces. The study notes that “In total, cost growth could add some $112 billion to the cost of nuclear forces over the next 25 years.” According to Harrison, one of the study’s authors, the largest cost overrun potential belongs to the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad “because of the Ohio replacement program and 100 percent of that cost counting towards the nuclear mission.”

The report concludes that “the Pentagon will indeed require as much as $12-13 billion per year in additional funding to support nuclear maintenance and modernization during the 2020s, when spending on U.S. nuclear forces will peak.” It says that while nuclear modernization will lead to defense spending above Budget Control Act limits, spending will once again drop close to current levels after a “bow wave” around fiscal 2027. Even so, Harrison said, the projected costs of the nuclear forces will likely remain just under 5 percent of the total defense budget. Funding the nuclear forces will “absolutely” be a challenge, he added. “But is it a matter of affordability? No, it’s a matter of prioritization. If you want to fund these systems, the money is there to do it even under the worst-case scenario here.”