Summary

The United States maintains a large and diverse nuclear arsenal to deter potential adversaries and to assure U.S. allies and other security partners. The United States will spend at least $143 billion over the next eight years on its nuclear arsenal, averaging $18 billion per year with costs increasing from $15 billion to $21 billion per year over that time. This estimate by no means, however, includes the full, actual costs of maintaining America's nuclear deterrent. The $143 billion number includes direct costs on nuclear weapons and strategic launchers such as missiles and submarines, as well as a portion of the costs of military personnel responsible for maintaining, operating, and executing nuclear missions. This estimate, however, excludes many other essential functions directly related to nuclear operations because those numbers are not readily identified in current budget documents. The costs for the nuclear mission are expected to grow substantially to well over $500 billion over the next 20 years if the United States decides to keep the nuclear triad - a nuclear arsenal with strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM).

The United States Does Not Provide Information on the Costs for Maintaining our Nuclear Deterrent

In 2005, the Government Accountability Office reported that even the Department of Defense itself did not know precisely how much the nuclear mission costs.[1] At present, there is no Congressional requirement that a stand-alone nuclear budget be developed. The Administration does not produce such an accounting, and no single budget account contains all known or expected nuclear-related costs.

It is possible to estimate some of the costs of maintaining the nuclear deterrent by piecing together information from the Department of Defense and Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Based on this data, it is estimated that in the eight-year period from FY2010-2017 (for which the U.S. Government has provided well-defined cost projections), the United States will spend at least $143 billion to maintain the current nuclear triad of missiles, bombers, submarines, and associated nuclear weapons, and to begin the process of developing their next generation replacements.

• DOE Weapons Activities includes the facilities, warhead maintenance, infrastructure, personnel, research & development projects, and physical components required to ensure the U.S. nuclear arsenal is safe, secure, and effective. Includes current projected costs for warhead Life Extension Programs.
• DOE Naval Reactors includes operations & maintenance and research & development costs for all Navy nuclear reactors. Some overlap is admittedly present, though difficult to delineate, due to reactors in aircraft carriers and other submarines.
• Ohio-class SSBN includes procurement costs and operations & maintenance costs for the Ohio-class SSBN, as well as the Life Extension Program of the Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile - essentially, the components of the delivery system.
• B-2/B-52 Bombers includes procurement costs and operations & maintenance costs for B-2 and B-52 squadrons, as well as the Life Extension Program of the air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) - essentially, the physical components of the delivery system.
• Minuteman III includes procurement costs of the ICBM squadrons, especially in relation to the Minuteman Life Extension Program. Unlike the SSBNs and Heavy Bombers, there is no readily identifiable line item for Minuteman operations & maintenance costs. The initial costs of the follow-on ICBM are included in the current Minuteman portion.
• USAF Additional includes operations & maintenance and military personnel costs beyond those included under B-2/B-52 Bombers and Minuteman III sections, as projected in the Air Force's "Nuclear Deterrence Operations" graph.[2]
• Replacement SSBN includes research and development costs of the follow-on to the Ohio-class SSBN. The two programs currently being funded develop the new submarine hull and its propulsion system. SSBNs are the submarines used to launch nuclear missiles.
• Replacement Bomber includes research and development costs of the follow-on to the current heavy bomber squadrons, sometimes referred to as the Next Generation Bomber, as well as the replacement for the ALCM, the Long Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO).

Complete Data Not Available

All facets of the U.S. nuclear arsenal - the warheads, the missiles and the bombers on which they are deployed - are undergoing constant maintenance and extensive modernization. Cost estimates are available for the majority of hardware procurement and research and development (R&D) programs for the existing and possible replacement nuclear force. However, most of the expected R&D and procurement costs for follow-on bombers, missiles and submarines are planned to take place after 2017. As of today, there are no official governmental estimates on these total costs.

Thus, the data reflected in the chart above represents only a fraction of the full costs of maintaining the nuclear deterrent. Other studies estimate that those costs may total $50 billion or more per year.[3] Additionally, this fact sheet includes only definable costs and does not include many of the support costs associated with command, control, communications, and intelligence, missile defense, environmental management, decommissioning costs, and other support missions that cannot be explained without their link to nuclear deterrence. Combined, these are estimated to account for tens of billions of dollars more per year.[4]

Costs Likely to Grow:

The costs for the nuclear mission are expected to grow substantially over the next 20 years if each leg of the nuclear triad is modernized to replace existing nuclear systems, ie., launchers, missiles and bombers. Decisions are currently being made on which systems to replace and in what numbers, and preliminary estimates suggest spending will increase to more than $25-30 billion per year for maintenance and procurement, not including many of the associated costs to maintain the nuclear arsenal.[5]

The Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) intends to publish a comprehensive study in Spring 2013 estimating the costs for the entire nuclear deterrent over the next 25 years and replacement life cycle costs for the nuclear triad.

Sources:
[1] GAO, "Actions Needed by DOD to More Clearly Identify New Triad Spending and Develop a Long-Term Investment Approach," www.gao.gov.
[2] United States Air Force FY2013 Budget Overview, p. 34, www.saffm.hq.af.mil.
[3] Stephen Schwartz and Deepti Choubey (2009): "Nuclear Security Spending: Assessing Costs, Examining Priorities," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, http://carnegieendowment.org.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Lawrence Korb, "The United States Should Reduce Its Nuclear Arsenal" http://thinkprogress.org; US Nuclear Modernization Programs, Arms Control Association, www.armscontrol.org; Russell Rumbaugh and Nathan Cohn (2012) "Resolving Ambiguity: Costing Nuclear Weapons," Henry L. Stimson Center, www.stimson.org; Schwartz and Choubey '09.