New Report on the Cost of Nuclear Weapons Released

Today, we released a report on how much the US spends on nuclear weapons: “Resolving Ambiguity: Costing Nuclear Weapons.”  Though there are official estimates and independent studies, no study has yet definitively answered the question of how much the US spends.

Our study tries to close the possible ranges of how much nukes cost through two key contributions to the debate: 1) clarifying definitional issues: making sure estimates are compared in an apples to apples fashion, and 2) using a new and different methodology to estimate the most uncertain parts of nuclear weapons spending—the supporting costs within the Department of Defense. 

All told, the report found $31B of spending on nuclear weapons in one year.  It also provides a 10 year estimate ranging from $350-$390B. 

At the least, the report shows that official estimates of nuclear spending understate the costs, and describes why.  But the estimate also helps bound how much is spent on nuclear weapons, all in a transparent and repeatable methodology. 

Hopefully, this report will help resolve some of the ambiguity that continues to cloud debates about nuclear weapons spending, and allow the real policy debate to come through. 

Comments

[Mark Ely]

Due to time constraints during the report’s release yesterday, I was unable to ask a couple of questions. (or maybe Russ was ignoring me on purpose!) Anyways, I thought I’d post them here on the BFAD blog:

Most importantly, I wanted to make a quick reply to one of the audience member’s questions yesterday where during his question he mentioned, “…the DoD essentially runs a Di-ad because the Air Force does not take seriously the nuclear bomber portion of the Triad and if there was one leg of the TRIAD the Air Force would consider getting rid of, it would be the bomber.” Overall, as one who has had the privilege of being the Stimson Center’s Air Force Visiting Fellow this past year, and a B-52 pilot for the past 16 years, I wanted to emphasize in response that the Air Force does take the nuclear bomber leg of the TRIAD very seriously, more so since the events of 2007. Even though we are not on constant 24-hour alert status and have conventional mission requirements to balance in our training, we take our nuclear training requirements very seriously, we understand that excellence in the nuclear enterprise is the CSAF’s top priority, we receive rigorous inspections and evaluations, and we are ready to effectively execute this mission if called upon. During a recent event at Brookings, General Schwartz re-emphasized his commitment to the importance of maintaining all legs of our nuclear TRIAD.

My question to the panel would have been: “why is it not acceptable to have a range of the dollar amount the DoD spends on the nuclear enterprise? Is it really that critical that we find an “exact” dollar figure?” The report concluded that, “the United States will spend between $352 and $392 billion on strategic nuclear offensive forces over the next 10 years.” Also, the report highlights previous estimates from other experts which include a range in their estimations – of course, depending on the definition of what constitutes a nuclear enterprise expenditure, these reports have differing results. Don’t get me wrong, as taxpayers we want and expect transparency and audit capability to ensure our government is good stewards to these precious assets, but do we really need an exact dollar figure? In my opinion, I don’t think we can ever get to an exact dollar amount to the nuclear enterprise (yes, I understand there can be areas that do provide better clarification and understanding to possibly allow lower percentages of a range). Also, I feel the biggest reason we can accept a minimal range in our nuclear cost estimation is the dual-use capability of some of our platforms, especially the air breathers. (note: I think the report over estimates the costs for the B-52 and B-2 in MFP-1, so to including B-1 costs in that amount. Also, the C-17 PNAF squadron’s cost to the nuclear enterprise are much lower than analyzed – again, this is because of their multi-use capabilities with that airframe and squadron).

Dual-use capabilities are difficult to determine. I have over 3000 hours in the B-52 and it is very difficult for me to tell you how many of those hours were strictly dedicated to nuclear training and what was dedicated to conventional training. A good example of this difficulty is air refueling training for a B-52 pilot…when they are spending time hooked-up with a tanker to train for this very critical capability, the experience they gain during this training improves their capability in BOTH missions. To try and give an analogy on the difficulty on providing an exact amount spent on nuclear training and conventional training, I use the example of my spouse. In the “Ely Household, Inc”, my spouse was first 100% wife…later we are blessed with two miracles, to where she is now both wife and mother. How do we define the percentage of time she dedicates as wife and how do we determine the amount of time she is “mom”? It is impossible to determine that. (note: when my wife asked me how I would answer the percentages she is a “wife” and “mom” the answer of course is she is 100% both all the time!) I know this is a crude analogy, but my intent is to try and highlight that dual-use platforms bring about a valid reason of ambiguity in trying to determine an exact amount that is spent on the nuclear enterprise, and therefore, it should be acceptable for us to have a “range” of estimations.

Thank you to everyone at the Stimson Center for making this past year as the Air Force Fellow very educational and memorable. Thank you especially to Dr. Barry Blechman for all your support, guidance, and time on improving my understating of the Nuclear Enterprise. Best wishes!