Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Fact Sheet: Expanding Nuclear Weapons Budget a Bad Investment

by Kingston Reif [contact information]

Updated November 29, 2011

The Budget Environment and Nuclear Weapons Spending

• There is broad bipartisan agreement that few national security issues are as critical as how to deal with America’s crippling debt. Getting America’s fiscal house in order will require difficult budgetary choices. While the Supercommittee may have failed, the economic problems it was designed to ameliorate remain. This means that we need to make smart decisions about what is most needed to safeguard U.S. national security in the 21st century.
• A close look at the Pentagon budget reveals numerous programs that are more closely related to defeating the Soviet Union during the Cold War than to addressing current security threats such as weak and failing states, cyber-security, and the threat of nuclear terrorism. A particularly egregious example is the budget for nuclear weapons programs.
• The United States currently plans to spend around $110 billion to build a new fleet of nuclear-armed submarines. The Pentagon estimates the total cost of building and operating the new subs at nearly $350 billion over the next 50 years. The Air Force also intends to spend $55 billion on procuring 100 new bombers and to spend an unknown sum on new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. These planned expenditures will add to the already enormous cost of simply operating and maintaining existing delivery systems. In addition, the National Nuclear Security Administration will spend $88 billion over the next decade to refurbish existing nuclear warheads and to rebuild the factories that make key warhead parts.
• Some of this spending is necessary, but a significant portion is designed to confront Cold War-era threats that no longer exist while posing financial and opportunity costs that can no longer be justified.

Nuclear Spending Plans Divorced From Strategic and Economic Realities

• U.S. military leaders have stated that our nuclear weapons budget is not grounded in a coherent overall strategy. As former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright noted in July 2011, “we haven’t really exercised the mental gymnastics, the intellectual capital, on that [what is required for nuclear deterrence] yet… I’m pleased that it’s starting, but I wouldn’t be in favor of building too much until we had that discussion.”
• In the current economic environment, it will be counter-productive to make unsustainable, open-ended commitments to hugely expensive programs. “We’re not going to be able to go forward with weapon systems that cost what weapon systems cost today,” STRATCOM chief Gen. Robert Kehler said recently. “Case in point is [the] Long-Range Strike [bomber]. Case in point is the Trident [submarine] replacement…. The list goes on.” Many other high-ranking military leaders have expressed similar views, and are looking for ways to scale back current spending plans.
• Fiscally responsible Republicans are proposing to rein in spending on nuclear weapons. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who voted against the New START treaty in December 2010, has proposed a deficit reduction plan that would cut $79 billion in spending on nuclear weapon systems over the next decade by reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to below the New START limit of 1,550 deployed warheads and cutting the number of delivery systems and warheads in reserve.

Matching Capabilities to Threats

• While nuclear weapons today play a much smaller role in U.S. national security strategy than they ever have, the U.S. continues to retain far more nuclear weapons than it needs to maintain its security. Following through with current plans to replace all three legs of the triad could saddle the U.S. with an excessively large nuclear arsenal for the next half century.
• Our national security will be better served by investing in capabilities that are more relevant to the current threat environment – while still allowing the US to maintain a survivable and credible deterrent. The need to prioritize is particularly important in light of the damage building new nuclear-weapons delivery systems could do to other more important defense priorities.
• The U.S. can guarantee its security and that of its allies in a more fiscally sustainable manner by pursuing further reductions in U.S. nuclear forces and scaling back plans for new and excessively large strategic nuclear weapons systems and warhead production facilities.