July 28, 2016
The True Cost of Nuclear Deterrence
By Peter Huessy
What’s the cost of modernizing our nuclear deterrent? Numbers ranging from $700 billion to near $1 trillion have been cited as the thirty-year cost of modernizing our nuclear deterrent including the three-legged nuclear stool of submarines, bombers and land based missiles, as well as the warhead laboratories and the command and control functions of the nuclear deterrent.
Opponents of nuclear deterrence point to these big numbers and want the next administration to cut back on most of the nuclear deterrent, including eliminating up to all three wings of the land based ICBMs, the cruise missile for the new strategic bomber and upwards of half of the planned new submarines. A recent letter from 10 US Senators, led by Senator Feinstein of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, urged the President to eliminate the cruise missile and otherwise slowdown or eliminate other parts of the nuclear modernization effort.
Are there big bucks available to cut in the nuclear modernization effort that can then be transferred to conventional military accounts as Feinstein and Warner propose?
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/07/28/the_true_cost_of_nuclear_deterrence_109635.html
