Cut Down On Nukes To Shave the Deficit

Hugh Pickens writes "Joe Cirincione writes in the Atlantic that the US government is set to spend almost $700 billion on nuclear weapons over the next 10 years, roughly as much as it spent on the war in Iraq over the last decade. Most of the money will be spent without any clear guidance on how many weapons we need and for what purpose. As long as nuclear weapons exist, we will need some to deter nuclear threats from others, but do we really need to duplicate the entire nuclear triad for another 50 years? 'The Pentagon budget includes funds to develop a new fleet of 12 nuclear-armed submarines with an estimated cost of $110 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Also planned is $55 billion for 100 new bombers, and a new missile to replace the recently upgraded 450 Minutemen III intercontinental ballistic missiles. ... The consensus among military officials and bipartisan security experts is that nuclear reductions enhance US national security,' writes Cirincione. As the Nuclear Posture Review says, 'Our most pressing security challenge at present is preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, for which a nuclear force of thousands of weapons has little relevance.'"

Left Out Reliability

[coolmoose25]

One of the big expenses is the reliability of the nuclear arsenal. Nuclear material is hot - radioactive - and that means it's also "disappearing" as it decays. Triggers, main charges, and other elements of a nuclear warhead do age and this needs to be addressed. We've done a lot of work with computer models since we're no longer willing to test fire any of these weapons, even underground. But this only goes so far, and if you ARE going to rely on those computer models, then you HAVE to make sure that what was modeled is actually what is IN those warheads. If we don't do this, it won't matter how many missiles and warheads we have. They won't be viewed as a credible threat if we can't show that they'll actually work. And all of this is in support of the strategy of deterrence, which seems to be our only strategy so far, since we're not willing to forcibly stop proliferation. Whether deterrence is even a viable strategy going forward is certainly up for debate. But I can tell you this. If North Korea or Iran end up nuking us somehow, we damn sure better be able to flatten those countries, or else we should get used to the idea of getting periodically nuked.

The Cut Downs have already happend.

[the_raptor]

WTF do people think all the START things are? It stands for STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The US and Russia have been cutting back their arsenals for more than twenty years. The reason there is huge upcoming expenditures being budgeted for is because the US nuclear arsenal is pretty much late 1980's vintage. Nuclear warheads don't stay viable forever, and planes and submarines wear out. Most of the expenditure is going to be on the planes and submarines, not Nuclear warheads, and those planes and submarines have non-nuclear warfare use

The B-52 was designed as a nuclear bomber, but has probably dropped more conventional ordnance then all other aircraft combined ever. Most SSBNs around the world have been adapted to be capable of firing either non-nuclear IMRBM or non-nuclear cruise missiles. They aren't just sitting under the ice with a cargo of nukes waiting for the Russkis to push the button.

The expensive thing isn't nuclear weapons, it is launch platforms and manpower. If you start cutting those heavily you may as well cut the carrier fleets and a few army divisions as well and accept not having the ability to fight three different wars at once.

Re:What?

[Riceballsan]

It did only take 2 to flatten japan, but you do have to compare the square mileage of japan vs Russia or china.
Area of china: 9,596,960 sq km. Area of japan 377,835. To do comparable damage to the same amount of area, as 2 nukes to japan, would be 50 nukes to china (ignoring of course the potential advance in technology potency etc of the nukes themselves). Admitted I would say 1,000 nukes should be enough, we have over 5k and are still working on making more which seems a bit obsessive, we should instead be spending money on say a technology to nueturalize nukes. Imagine the technical advantage of something the equivelent of an EMP field, but rather then eliminating electronics, it renders nukes coming at us inert. May be above our technology range now, but if we took 300 bil out of our nuke production, we could probably do it.

Re:You Need to Think About the Two Outcomes ...

[crawling_chaos]

Jimmy Carter all but left us to the Soviets mercy and pretty much every one elses.

Bullshit. Some of us lived through the period. We were never "at the Soviets mercy." You are entitled to your own opinion about the man, but buddy you are not entitled to your own facts, particularly ones that can only be found on films from your last colonoscopy / ear exam. Must be nice to see one specialist for both, however.

Re:What?

[sheehaje]

A) You don't need to nuke the whole country. Think if Washington, New York, Houston and LA were hit with 1 nuke each. We would collapse. Same thing with any other country. You hit population, finance, political and military centers, you will fold a country.

B) Nukes today are much more powerful than what we used in Japan. Maybe not as powerful as some tested in the 50's and 60's, but far more powerful than the relatively small ones used on Japan.

Honestly, 500 nukes should be more than enough for any situation. Heck, even 100 is enough. The problem is keeping those hundred nukes safe, spread out, and operational, which is most of the cost whether you have 500 or 5000 nukes.

Re:You Need to Think About the Two Outcomes ...

[darkmeridian]

This is a relatively looney tune response but I'll bite. No one is saying that Communists are nice people. I mean, Hitler was a very religious guy who thought that Jews killed Christ and therefore he had to kill themâ"but I'm not going to say that all religious people are Hitlers. Hell, the Iranians are very religious people, but that clearly doesn't mean that they're our friends, not by a long shot! The Cold War was won by spending Russia to death. Reagan worked up a gigantic national debt in doing so. Does it seem like a good time right now to pursue that policy?

The argument is that we have many nuclear warheads that we are spending hundreds of billions on. The proposal is that the money spend on keeping these weapons on the ready can be better spent elsewhere. Consider: what are the consequences to our national security if we cut that down to 2,500 nuclear warheads? That's enough to irradiate Russia or China a couple of times overâ"certainly enough to dissuade them from launching a nuclear attack. Does reducing the number of warheads reduce the survivability of our force? Depends, but if we keep the bulk of them deployed on ballistic submarines, they'll likely never be tracked or shot at by any other country in the world.

Does the idea of a nuclear-bomb-equipped bomber or cruise missile seem archaic to you in an age of super-reliable ICBMs based in the sea and on land? The US Air Force accidentally flew nuclear bombs across the US without knowing that the bombs were live. Think about that. How much value is the "bomber" part of the nuclear triad adding? We can lower the number of nuclear bombers and base them around the world for backup, but what makes you think that we must have nuclear weapons at current levels of maintain our national safety?

But hey, let's ignore this, and go all hysterical about even considering lowering the level of nuclear weapons. Because Jimmy Carter is an asshole and Reagan is God. Or maybe because you're delusional.

Re:What?

[tgd]

The bombings of Tokyo damaged more and killed more than both nukes combined.

The two nuclear bombs ended the war, not because we vaporized two cities, but because they had no idea how many more we had.

Re:What?

[wagnerrp]

Actually, the US and Great Britain are both designing new ballistic submarines, with the US's existing fleet being a 35yr old design and the newest 15yrs old. The French started building their new Triomphant class in the late 90's, with their latest entering service just last year. The Russians recently restarted their Borei class with two ships launched, and a third due out next year. The remaining five are postponed, not due to funding cuts, but because they want to redesign it significantly into a new class.

The US is not alone. Everyone, including Russia, is spending money on new nuclear hardware.

Re:Hey!

[hedwards]

The stimulus didn't fail. The economy was in free fall, whereas now it's just stagnant. Had we done another round of stimulus the odds are pretty good that we'd be going in the right direction. But, it's pretty dishonest to say that it didn't work when rather than free fall we're moving in the right direction, albeit slowly.

At any rate, cutting taxes for the wealthy hasn't exactly been working out so well. And we've got more than enough capital right now in the markets. What we don't have is consumer spending because all that money is going to the wealthiest.

Re:Easiest way to save money

[Goldsmith]

Nice logic, but the military is only the 3rd largest piece of the US budget.

The biggest part of the US budget is health care subsidies currently at $793 billion a year.

The second largest part of the budget is social security currently at $701 billion a year.

The military budget is currently at $689 billion a year.

If we cut the $700 billion, 10 year nuclear program (which I think is a good idea), we would save ~$70 billion a year. Our deficit is on the order of $1 trillion a year. If we cut the entire military budget, we would still be running a yearly deficit. So yeah, we should start with the biggest pieces and start whittling down.

This is not an argument for military spending. I agree that it's too high, we don't need 11 carriers for example, but we have to be honest with ourselves about the cost social programs.

Cheaper by the dozen.

[alexander_686]

Well, for subs you want to build at least 3. That way you can always have 1 out to sea. Anything less and you will have times when all of your subs are in dock. Just look at the aguish the British are having with their subs. And that assumes the only thing the sub is being a nuclear deterrent and that no backup is needed.
If you are planning to do anything else with your sub [Recon, special unit warfare, launching cruise missiles close the enemy cost, etc.] you had better hope that you are operating in a single theater a time.

Planes are kind of the same thing. If they have a single task [such as a B1-B] you can get away with fewer. If they can do multiple things then you are going to want more.

Lastly, if you build 12 subs, the 12th sub is going to be about ½ the cost of the first. The first subs are going to be more expensive until the workers figure out the best way to put things together better. And I am not talking about spreading R&D costs over multiple units [which is also true]. We are talking about assembling a highly complex machine. Planes tend to be the same.

Re:Wat?

[TheSync]

"No two countries with a mcDonalds have ever gone to war."

Nice idea, but false:

Georgia [hotels.ltd.ge] and Russia [mcdonalds.ru]

Israel [mcdonalds.co.il] and Lebanon [mcdonalds.com.lb] (check out the "McArabia" sandwich!)

NATO vs. Serbia [flickr.com]

Re:Easiest way to save money

[Anonymous Coward]

Social security is funded through the social security tax and is not part of the budget. The fact that politicians "borrowed" from it over the years is a different story.