Estimated Cost of US Nuclear Modernization Jumps During More Expensive Phase
The Congressional Budget Office’s latest estimate puts the next decade’s price tag at $634 billion as some lawmakers try to bring it back down.
By Patrick Tucker
Technology Editor
May 24, 2021 05:51 PM ET
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of the increase in the projected cost.
The next decade of work to replace America’s nuclear bombers, missile submarines, and ICBMs will cost roughly $35 billion more than expected, about a 7 percent jump, the Congressional Budget Office said in a new report.
The report updates the 10-year projected cost of the Pentagon’s nuclear modernization plan. In 2019, the CBO estimated that the work would cost $494 billion through 2028. The new report, which covers the years 2021 to 2030, puts the cost at $634 billion. About half of the $140 billion difference reflects the planned shift from research and development to the more expensive production phase. Another quarter of the difference reflects anticipated higher inflation.
The final quarter — the $35 billion increase — reflects that projected costs for command, control, communications, and early-warning systems have “increased substantially,” the report says, adding that if full costs of B-52 and B-21 bombers were included, “the total costs of nuclear forces, with cost growth, would be $711 billion.”
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/05/estimated-cost-us-nuclear-modernization-jumps/174267/
