Calvin Biesecker
Defense Daily
The projected cost to operate, maintain, and modernize America’s nuclear forces during the next 10 years is $400 billion, an average of $40 billion annually, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
CBO’s new estimate of nuclear force plans for the departments of Defense and Energy is based on fiscal 2017 budget requests. The new estimate is 15 percent higher than the previous 10-year estimate provided in January 2015, which put the cost at $348 billion, CBO says in the congressionally-mandated report, Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2017 to 2026. The report is required every two years.
The report says most of the increase in estimated costs is because the new 10-year period includes two additional years of development in planned nuclear force modernization programs, as the new forecast includes two higher cost years than the previous projection. It also says in the past two years, modernization plans for some nuclear systems are better defined, “leading to higher cost projections for some programs and lower projections for others.”
The United States plans to replace its existing fleet of ICBMs, ballistic missile submarines, and strategic bombers as part of a modernization program that has been projected to cost upward of $1 trillion over 30 years.
Of the estimated $400 billion, CBO says $189 billion is associated with strategic nuclear delivery systems and weapons such as nuclear missile submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers, DOE’s funding for warheads related to the delivery systems and its costs for nuclear reactors that power the missile-carrying subs.
Another $87 million is related to DOE’s nuclear weapons laboratories stemming from the costs of maintaining current and future nuclear weapons. This funding, which involves an additional $8 billion over CBO’s 2015 estimate, is for nuclear weapons laboratories and production plans that support maintenance of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
The report attributes that increase to “larger budgets for support activities associated with strategic materials used in modernization programs (uranium, plutonium, and tritium) and plans for several new construction projects, such as a new facility to produce radiation-hardened electronics.”
CBO says $58 billion is estimated for DoD costs for command, control, communications, and early warning systems linked to the control and use of nuclear weapons and to detect incoming attacks.
The report says it will cost $9 billion for tactical nuclear delivery systems and weapons, including DoD’s funding of tactical aircraft to carry the weapons. The remaining funding, $56 billion, is the estimated cost growth, CBO says. The report says the growth estimates are based on the costs of similar programs in the past.
As part of overall national defense spending, CBO says “nuclear forces account for roughly 6 percent of the total 10-year costs of the plans” based on the fiscal 2017 budget request and that “on an annual basis, that percentage is projected to rise from 5 percent in 2017 to slightly less than 7 percent in 2016.”
