A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office estimates that over the next ten years, U.S. nuclear spending will be twenty eight percent higher than was estimated just two years ago. There were claims that modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal will be “far more expensive than anticipated.” That may be true but there are a lot of caveats and footnotes in that report. There are four things that should be kept in mind when considering the estimations in the report.
First of all, the new report is reviewing the costs for a different time period than the previous estimate. The previous report covered 2019-2028. The new report covers the period from 2021 – 2030. The CBO report explains that “The higher estimates in this report do not necessarily signal an increase in programs’ total lifetime costs.” The report does reflect a more expensive period for nuclear modernization. In the two new years in the new report, procurement in the key programs including the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent accelerates. If that is not taken into account when considering the differences between the two reports, then the comparison is not fair.
Second, the program requirements have changed over the last two years. The CBO attributes the majority of the higher costs projected for the 2021-2028 period which is covered by both reports to new requirements related to nuclear warheads. The report said, “The majority of that increase comes from new plans for modernizing production facilities for strategic materials…[and] warhead life-extension programs for which funding schedules have been accelerated.”
Sixty percent of our military nuclear facilities are more than forty years old. All weapons in the stockpile date back to the Cold War. Many analysts say that modernization plans and schedules may be expensive, but they are necessary.
Third, the CBO report includes cost estimates that are subjective. Fifteen percent of the estimated increase comes for a CBO decision to add an extra twenty-one billion dollars to account for “general growth beyond budgeted amounts.”
This extra money is not based on known program or technical difficulties. It just reflects historical cost overruns for similar programs. This part of the estimate is not a hard number and is subject to change as circumstances require.
Another problem is the lack of precise project costs. The CBO report estimates that the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile will cost ten billion dollars over ten years. This project does not have an acquisition strategy yet so the CBO based its estimate on the cost of the Long-Range Standoff weapon which is a completely different weapon system and a poor basis for an estimate. So, this estimate is also subject to change.
Fourth, the CBO report has been challenged because it includes dubious costs that inflate the estimates such as the costs of sustaining our current nuclear forces in addition to their replacement programs. For example, the CBO report includes four billion two hundred million dollars for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) for fiscal year 2021 even though Congress only appropriated about one billion five hundred million dollars for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program for 2021.
In order to understand the origin of this discrepancy, you have to plow through additional data tables that can only be found elsewhere on the CBO website. Ultimately, you will find a table that lists two billion eight hundred million dollars for ICBM modernization. This number must include warhead modernization although that is not made explicit.
The remainder of the four billion two hundred million is dedicated to operating and sustaining the fifty-year old Minuteman III missiles. This confuses the cost of replacement with what we already must do just to maintain our current deterrent. Because of this confusion, some critics have mistakenly claimed that the cost of replacing the nuclear triad has jumped to six hundred and thirty-four billion dollars although a significant portion of that covers sustainment costs.