U.S. Forecast to Spend $400B on Nuke Forces Over Next Decade: CBO
02/16/17 07:56
Weapons Complex Monitor
The United States appears set to spend $400 billion on its nuclear deterrent over the next decade, with spending rising as weapons modernization advances, the Congressional Budget Office reported Tuesday.
The United States appears set to spend $400 billion on its nuclear deterrent over the next decade, with spending rising as weapons modernization advances, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported Tuesday.
"If carried out, the plans for nuclear forces delineated in the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) budget requests for fiscal year 2017 would cost a total of $400 billion over the 2017– 2026 period, CBO estimates—an average of $40 billion a year. according to the report. "The current 10-year total is 15 percent higher than CBO’s most recent previous estimate of the 10-year costs of nuclear forces, $348 billion over the 2015–2024 period."
That increase is primarily due to the fact that the latest congressionally mandated cost estimate includes an additional two years of the modernization program, in which the United States plans to replace its existing fleet of ICBMs, ballistic missile submarines, and strategic bombers. The entire modernization program has been projected to cost upward of $1 trillion over 30 years.
Of the estimated $400 billion price tag, CBO said it expects DOE and DOD to spend $344 billion in four areas: $189 billion at both agencies for strategic nuclear delivery systems and weapons; $9 billion at both agencies for tactical nuclear delivery systems and weapons; $87 billion for DOE nuclear weapons laboratories and associated operations; and $58 billion for Pentagon nuclear command, control, communications, and early warning systems.
"The remaining $56 billion of the $400 billion 10-year total represents CBO’s estimate of additional costs that would be incurred over the 2017–2026 period if the costs for those nuclear programs exceeded planned amounts at roughly the same rates that costs for similar programs have grown in the past," CBO said.
11 comments:
Nuclear testing, here we come.
How long will it take to reconstitute our underground test program?
Depends what rate of spending you are willing to support. If it is a top priority, and especially if you just want to check that something goes boom without much diagnostic information, a crash course with unlimited funds could probably take a couple months, I'd guess. We have bombs, we have holes at the test site, the rest is details. Recreating all the capabilities and infrastructure that existed in the early 90s would take much longer. Hard to imagine what national crisis would drive us to do all that, though.
The threat to begin testing would shakeup the Russians and Chinese to do something serious with North Korea and Iran.
Livermore will be back in the Cat 1/2 game soon. Bechtel will leave and UC will regain the throne. LANL will be dethroned. Balance will be restored.
I want some of what you're smoking. CAT I/II infrastructure (PIDADS, etc.) is out of date and decrepit. No $$ to fix it, and no current training for security force. Not going to happen.
LANL will be dethroned. Balance will be restored.
February 19, 2017 at 6:30 AM
LANL will be dethroned? LANL was dethroned and flushed when LLNL and Bechtel managers (i.e. Anastasio, McMillan, Mara, and Knapp) came in and destroyed it in 2006.
For certain, LANL was destroyed by outside managers, most of them from Livermore. Sadly, even when you hand Livermore the reigns and half the Los Alamos designed stockpile, they still cannot move things along. The do follow the money.
Kings have reigns. Horses have reins. Some days it rains.
Hard to imagine underground nuclear testing could be resumed in any reasonable time frame at any reasonable cost. The infrastructure in both personnel and hardware is gone. Those old EGG scopes have long since rotted away, even the (then) high tech digitizers will still being evaluated when testing ended. And 20+ years out that technology is likely long gone also.
Among so called nuclear powers, only the USA is unable to design, build, or test a nuclear device.
This is a real problem with no obvious solution. But Lord HaHa should avoid saber rattling until there is some sort of resolution.
Underground atomic bomb testing to resume in 3... 2... 1...
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