By Peter Huessy, President of Geostrategic Analysis, Potomac, Maryland
Pick up a newspaper or review an article online and one would think the US nuclear deterrent modernization effort is going to cost the US government some $1.5-$1.7 trillion over the next thirty years, or an average of over $53 billion annually. As a result, there are various efforts in Congress to hack billions from an assumed bloated nuclear budget in the name of fiscal prudence.
But the facts are otherwise. Nuclear modernization costs are not $1.5 trillion. And not even $1 trillion. In fact, in one CBO estimate, real modernization costs were estimated at 73% less or around $400 billion.
Why does the media use inflated numbers? First, laziness. Second, they often do not understand what is being modernized and what simply sustained. And third, they like smacking around defense budget hawks and the supposed militarists in the Pentagon.
In actuality, in any one year, as much as two-thirds of the entire nuclear modernization enterprise is devoted not to modernization but to sustainment. It is true, when CBO first started putting out these numbers, they did not make a distinction between operations and sustainment and modernization. So, media reports followed suit and made no distinction. But since then, because of criticism, CBO has admitted modernization is closer to $400 billion over 30 years, and this still includes variously between 25% and 100% of the conventional bomber force costs that former OSD official Jim Miller says is only 3% nuclear related. Just recently on May 24, the CBO estimates all Triad costs at $624 billion over ten years, but again this included 0&M, NNSA, NC3 and other sustainment costs.
Back in 2019, CBO cleverly cooked the budget books on nuclear spending to get the initial $1.2 trillion figure. This was then reported to Congress. And a flashy new bumper sticker—“Nukes will cost over a trillion dollars”—was born, used to scare everyone to death about the alleged unaffordable nuke spending.
But the facts say otherwise. When analyzed carefully, mods and sustainment together might get you to near $1 trillion for the next thirty years but definitely not modernization, which is after all the target of the nuclear disarmers. .
One example will suffice: what is the total annual research, development, test, and evaluation, (RDT&E) and acquisition budget for all the modernization elements in our nuclear arsenal?
