Over the next decade, the U.S. will spend an estimated $756 billion on modernizing and maintaining its current and future nuclear forces, or about $75 billion per year, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office found.
Looking at the 10 years from 2023 to 2032, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), found that U.S. spending on nuclear weapons would rise 19 percent from the 2021 projection of $634 billion annually through 2030. CBO crunches nuke spending numbers every two years.
“Altogether, annual budgets for those programs (excluding the allowance for cost growth) would rise steadily from about $50 billion in 2023 to a peak of about $75 billion in 2031 before dropping slightly in 2032,” CBO estimated in the report published July 14. “DoD would incur about two-thirds of the costs.”
The 10-year total includes $305 billion for the operation and sustainment of current and future nuclear forces, $247 billion for the modernization of strategic and tactical nuclear delivery systems and the weapons they carry and $108 billion for modernizing National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) facilities and equipment at various nuclear weapons laboratory sites.
About $660 billion of the total will go toward Department of Defense and Department of Energy modernization plans as laid out in the fiscal year 2023 budget, CBO found. Of that amount, $247 billion will cover nuclear weapons and delivery system modernization.
Spending on NNSA nuclear weapons laboratories through 2032 will total $148 billion, CBO projected. That funding will cover activities at labs and weapons production facilities that are “not directly attributable to a specific type of warhead but that are related to maintaining current and future stockpiles of nuclear weapons.”
DOE’s plans to refurbish or build new facilities for producing materials and components used in nuclear weapons would cost about $49 billion over the 10-year period, in CBO’s estimation.
Strategic nuclear delivery systems and weapons — ballistic missile submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and long-range bombers — will eat up more than half the projected modernization spending, at $389 billion, CBO found. All three legs of the triad are being replaced, beginning in the period studied.
The Columbia-class nuclear submarine, LGM-35 Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles and B-21 bomber all will be under development or being fielded within the next decade.
The $389 billion figure also includes the warheads used by those systems and the nuclear reactors to power the Columbia-class boats. Almost half of the costs in this category would be for ballistic missile submarines, CBO said.
Tactical nukes and delivery systems will require about $6 billion over the next 10 years CBO said. That category consists of tactical aircraft like the F-35A that can deliver nuclear weapons over shorter ranges and DOE’s funding for activities related to the warheads that those aircraft carry.
Projected spending on tactical nuclear weapons does not include development of a lower-yield nuclear ea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N). Although both houses of Congress have included funding for a SLCM-N and a sea-launched version of the W80-4 warhead it will carry, the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review – aligned with the Biden administration’s plan to defund the program – recommended its cancelation.
Developing a SLCM-N and its warhead would cost about $10 billion through 2032 if the program got off the ground in 2024, CBO found.
