2. 53Bomb Voyage! January/February 2016
T
he United States is slated to
spend about one trillion dol-
lars over the next thirty years to
maintain and rebuild its nuclear
arsenal. That breaks down to roughly $35
billion a year, a fortune in this time of limit-
ed defense spending. Is it worth it? Twenty-
five years after the end of the Cold War, the
United States simply does not need—and
cannot afford—to rebuild every nuclear-
armed missile, bomber and submarine in
its arsenal to last another fifty years as if the
U.S.-Soviet rivalry never ended. Moreover,
pursuing an excessive arsenal runs the risk
of igniting a new arms race with Russia that
could needlessly undermine U.S. security.
Moscow has announced its own plans to
rebuild its nuclear forces, but faces even
greater economic challenges.
“We are about to begin a new round in
the nuclear arms race unless some brake is
put on it right now,” former secretary of
defense William J. Perry recently warned.
Indeed, a new arms race has already begun
in slow motion, with current plans taking
decades to carry out. Multiyear contracts
are being signed, such as the recent one
with Northrop Grumman for a new strate-
gic bomber, and billions of dollars are being
spent. Before long, the programs will be-
come too big to stop. The Obama admin-
istration’s arsenal-modernization plans are
also raising concerns among America’s non-
nuclear allies, who see the effort as incon-
sistent with the president’s stated nuclear-
disarmament goals. Yet Washington needs
the support of these allies to strengthen
global nonproliferation efforts.
It’s past time for the Obama administra-
tion to take a hard look at where the U.S.
nuclear arsenal is heading. Given Russia’s
saber rattling in Europe, it’s tempting to
overbuild in the mistaken belief of further
insuring safety. But the actual risk of a
nuclear war is low, and U.S. conventional
dominance is unquestioned. The United
States no longer needs such an expensive
insurance policy against the Russian nucle-
ar threat—and this fact provides a rare op-
portunity to save tens of billions of dollars.
Saving money is becoming increasingly
important for U.S. national security. Last
summer, an independent, bipartisan federal
commission cochaired by Perry and retired
general John Abizaid called the administra-
tion’s plans for the nuclear arsenal “unaf-
fordable” and a threat to “needed improve-
ments in conventional forces.” The good
news is that the United States can safely
scale back its plans for the nuclear arsenal,
saving scarce defense funds and reducing
the dangers of a new arms race.
During the Cold War, the United States
and the Soviet Union produced massive
nuclear arsenals to deter each other from
launching nuclear and large conventional
attacks. Since the 1960s, these arsenals have
Tom Z. Collina is the Policy Director at
Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation
in Washington DC, where Will Saetren is a Roger
Hale Fellow.
Bomb Voyage!
By Tom Z. Collina and Will Saetren
3. The National Interest54 Bomb Voyage!
been reduced by around 85 percent, and
there is a growing realization that the only
credible use for nuclear weapons by the
United States or Russia is to deter a nucle-
ar attack by the other. While the number
of deployed nuclear weapons has plum-
meted, the nature of the nuclear threat
has changed even more dramatically. The
chance that the United States or Russia
would actually use nuclear weapons against
each other has significantly declined, al-
most to the point of irrelevance. Other
than keeping Russia’s nuclear arsenal in
check, nuclear weapons provide no advan-
tages to the United States over convention-
al forces. And for defending against more
likely attacks, such as terrorism or small-
scale military operations, nuclear weapons
are useless.
Some of America’s highest-ranking mili-
tary officers share this opinion. Former
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
retired general Colin Powell said that “the
one thing that I convinced myself after
all these years of exposure to the use of
nuclear weapons is that they were use-
less. They could not be used.” Russian
president Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine ad-
venture is a case in point. The existing
U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe did not
keep Russia from annexing Crimea. Nor
would more U.S. nuclear weapons push
Russia back out. Beyond political rheto-
ric, nuclear weapons have played no role
in this crisis. Moscow has increased its
threats, but Putin does not seek a nuclear
war with the United States. Such a war
would only invite the destruction of Rus-
sia. In 2013, the commander of the U.S.
Air Force Global Strike Command, Lt.
Gen. James Kowalski, described the threat
of a Russian nuclear attack on the United
States as such a “remote possibility” that
it is “hardly worth discussing.” “We’ve es-
tablished a relationship with the Russians.
We don’t have the ideological tension that
we had during the Cold War. Which is not
to say there aren’t points of tension, but
4. Bomb Voyage! 55January/February 2016
they’re certainly not on the scale [they’ve]
been in the past.”
The reduced risk of nuclear war with Rus-
sia means the United States does not need to
fully replace each part of its current nuclear
arsenal, which was designed to deter a geo-
political competitor that no longer exists.
When the perceived risk of a nuclear con-
flict was at its zenith, the United States de-
cided it needed a comprehensive insurance
policy with sky-high premiums and mul-
tiple redundancies (known in the military
as “hedges,” as in “to hedge one’s bets”). But
we no longer require this expensive posture.
T
here are two main ways to save
on nukes. First, the total number
of nuclear warheads could be cut.
The 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty (New start) sets a cap of 1,550 on
U.S. and Russian deployed, accountable
strategic warheads each by 2018. In addi-
tion, President Barack Obama announced
in 2013 that he would like to reduce the
U.S. strategic arsenal, in coordination with
Russia, by another one-third, to around one
thousand warheads. Such bilateral reduc-
tions could go even deeper, bringing secu-
rity benefits to both sides. Unfortunately,
Russia has rejected additional reductions
for now. Until Moscow changes its mind, it
will be politically difficult for Washington
to significantly reduce its nuclear warheads
below New start levels. But it is safe to
expect that U.S.-Russian reductions will re-
sume at some point. We can plan for this by
not overbuilding delivery systems now.
Second, while the two sides are tempo-
rarily stuck at New start warhead levels,
the United States could reduce the number
of new delivery systems it plans to build in
the future. Fewer delivery systems do not
necessarily translate into fewer deployed
warheads, due to multiple redundancies in
the system. For example, the United States
developed a triad of nuclear delivery sys-
tems—land-based missiles, sea-based mis-
siles, and long-range bombers—each func-
tionally independent from the other. In the
unlikely event that any one leg of the triad
fails, the others could fill the gap. There are
even more hedges built into each leg—each
ballistic missile system has multiple types
of nuclear warheads, the bomber force car-
ries both gravity bombs and nuclear-armed
cruise missiles, and there are more subma-
rines deployed than needed. This belt-and-
suspenders approach to nuclear forces may
have made sense during the Cold War, but
it has become an unneeded luxury.
Some have suggested that the United
States no longer needs a triad, and could do
just fine with a dyad or monad. In 2012,
retired general James Cartwright, who led
U.S. Strategic Command between 2004
and 2007, and former senator Chuck Hagel
(who’d go on to become secretary of defense)
coauthored a report for Global Zero, which
recommended that U.S. intercontinental
ballistic missiles (icbms) be eliminated due
to their inherent vulnerability and lack of
targeting flexibility. U.S. strategic bombers
could see their nuclear role eliminated too,
as they are not armed with nuclear weap-
ons on a day-to-day basis and already play
a limited nuclear role. A white paper issued
by the Cato Institute in 2013 recommended
that the United States keep only subma-
This belt-and-suspenders approach to nuclear forces may have made
sense during the Cold War, but it has become an unneeded luxury.
5. The National Interest56 Bomb Voyage!
rines, which are the most survivable leg of
the triad. Still, political reality suggests that
Washington is not about to dispense with
the triad, which is supported by the presi-
dent and by both parties in Congress.
Any politically feasible plan will start
with keeping the triad, but there is growing
support in Washington for trimming some
secondary redundancies and “luxury” items
in U.S. nuclear delivery systems. Do not
confuse this with tinkering at the margins.
The money at stake is immense, and the
savings—roughly $75 billion in the next
decade alone—come without compromis-
ing U.S. nuclear priorities.
S
caling back plans to replace the cur-
rent fleet of Ohio-class nuclear-armed
submarines is one of the most pro-
found cost-saving measures the Pentagon
could undertake. According to a 2015 Con-
gressional Research Service (crs) report the
acquisition cost of the replacement pro-
gram, including research and development,
is estimated to be $139 billion in then year
dollars. By reducing the current fleet to
eight and building eight new subs instead of
12, the Navy would save approximately $21
billion over ten years, and an additional $30
billion in the 2030s, according to the Con-
gressional Budget Office (cbo).
Under New start the Pentagon plans to
deploy approximately one thousand nuclear
warheads on submarines. Eight submarines
can meet this requirement (each sub could
hold 128 warheads). So why buy twelve?
The “need” for twelve subs has more to
do with how promptly the missiles could
strike their targets. More subs means they
could be stationed within striking distance
of their targets in China and Russia, ready
to fire at a moments notice. This “quick
launch” requirement is based on Cold
War thinking that should now be relaxed.
Instead of forward-deploying subs, they
should be kept out of harm’s way, as an as-
sured retaliatory force if ever needed. This
approach would utilize their comparative
advantage as second-strike weapons.
A potential adversary would have no way
of targeting America’s deployed submarines
in a first strike scenario. Even if Moscow
were to wipe out all U.S. icbms and bomb-
ers (an impossible scenario), it would know
full well that the entire U.S. arsenal of sub-
marine-launched ballistic missiles could be
knocking at its door in a matter of hours
or days. The Navy admits that it cannot
afford to sustain a three-hundred-ship fleet
while also building twelve new subs. But
instead of scaling back its plans, the service
is seeking to fund the replacement for the
Ohio-class subs from outside its budget.
This is no way to run a military branch.
Congress needs to enforce budget discipline
and encourage the Navy to live within its
means. Unfortunately, some on Capitol
Hill are heading in the opposite direction
by creating a special bank account for extra
Navy money, the National Sea-Based De-
terrence Fund. As the undersecretary of
defense Frank Kendall said in 2014, budget
gimmicks, like the sub fund, don’t actually
solve anything. He explained,
At the end of the day we have to find money
to pay for these things one way or anoth-
er, right? So changing the accounting system
The money at stake is immense, and the savings—
roughly $75 billion in the next decade alone—
come without compromising U.S. nuclear priorities.
6. Bomb Voyage! 57January/February 2016
doesn’t really change that fundamental re-
quirement. We still need the money and it has
to come from somewhere.
O
ther branches of the armed forc-
es also have plans that outpace
needs. The Air Force awarded a
contract to Northrop Grumman in Oc-
tober to design and build a replacement
for its long-range strategic-bomber fleet,
which currently includes the b-52 and b-1,
expected to continue flying until at least
2040, and the stealthy b-2, expected to
remain on active duty until 2058, if not
longer. But why now? Given the decades of
service left in the current bomber fleet, the
new bomber program can safely be delayed
until 2025, according to cbo. Doing so
would generate $34 billion of savings over
the next ten years. That estimate is based
on the Air Force’s plans to build one hun-
dred planes at a cost of $550 million each,
not including $21 billion for research and
development. With these numbers taken
into account the Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessment estimates that the
fleet will cost approximately $111 billion to
procure through 2039.
The Air Force has a dismal record of
delivering on its cost promises. When de-
veloping the b-2 bomber, also built by
Northrop, the Air Force heralded it as the
future of aviation technology and planned
to build a fleet of 132 planes for $571 mil-
lion per unit in 1991 dollars. That didn’t
happen. The cost of the program ballooned
to $2.2 billion per plane, forcing the first
Bush administration to stop production
after only twenty-one planes were built. In
addition to the b-2 fiasco, the Air Force has
experienced a series of delays and massive
cost overruns in the f-35 program. Ac-
cording to an April 2015 report from the
Government Accountability Office, the
program’s initial cost estimate of $233 bil-
lion has increased by 68 percent to $391.1
billion. While the cost has skyrocketed,
the amount of planes to be purchased has
dropped by more than 16 percent.
Delaying the new bomber would give the
Air Force more time to accurately evaluate
the costs of the program. The cbo predicts
that even with a ten-year delay, the new
bomber would still be completed in time to
replace the current fleet when it reaches the
end of its service life. Moreover, the delay
would allow the new bomber to incorpo-
rate technological advances made during
that time. According to the cbo, “Taking
advantage of future technological devel-
opments can be particularly valuable for
weapon systems that are expected to be in
use for several decades.
The new bomber would carry two types
of nuclear weapons: a rebuilt gravity bomb
(the b61-12) and an Air-Launched Cruise
Missile (alcm). The current alcm, carried
7. The National Interest58 Bomb Voyage!
by b-52 bombers, is scheduled for retire-
ment in 2030, and plans to replace it are
underway. Although there is no official
price tag on the project, experts estimate
that research, development and procure-
ment will cost approximately $15 billion
over the program’s lifespan. Updating the
warhead to fit the next generation cruise
missile, known as the Long-Range Stand-
Off (lrso) weapon, will bring the total
closer to $25 billion. Cutting the lrso now
will save approximately $5 billion of this
figure over the next ten years.
The new bomber is being designed to
penetrate enemy air defenses, so it needs
gravity bombs that can be dropped from
above, like the b61. It does not need a nu-
clear standoff missile like the lrso, which
would be shot from outside enemy air-
space. Bill Perry, who oversaw Pentagon
development of the nuclear cruise missile
35 years ago, is now calling for its replace-
ment to be cancelled. Perry and his Penta-
gon colleague Andy Weber urged President
Obama in October to “cancel the current
plan to develop and buy 1,000 to 1,100
new nuclear-capable air-launched cruise
missiles.” Standoff nuclear attacks, if we
ever need them, can be conducted just as
effectively by submarine-launched ballistic
missiles. Having cruise missiles on the new
bomber would be a “hedge” in case the
bombs could not be used, just as the bomb-
ers themselves are a “hedge” in case the
other legs of the triad are unavailable. We
do not need a hedge on a hedge.
W
ashington should rein in plans
for the U.S. icbm program as
well. The Arms Control Asso-
ciation recently reported that the Air Force
is developing a replacement for the current
Minuteman III icbm force. Dubbed the
Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, the Air
Force projects the new missile to cost $62.3
billion over twenty-nine years (about $2.1
billion per year). This estimate differs sub-
stantially from a detailed 2014 rand study
that favors extending the life of the current
Minuteman III, which rand analysts found
to be “a relatively inexpensive way to retain
current icbm capabilities.”
The rand report found that keeping
the Minuteman IIIs in current silos is the
cheapest option, a program that would still
cost up to $90 billion over thirty-nine years
(about $2.3 billion per year). In compari-
son, rand estimated that building a new
silo-based icbm would cost up to $125
billion ($3.2 billion per year) and a mo-
bile version (rail or road) would cost up to
$219 billion ($5.6 billion per year).
Forgoing a new missile would thus save
the Pentagon roughly $15 billion over the
next ten years, using the rand numbers
and assuming the program would have
started in 2020. After 2025, extending the
lifespan of the Minuteman III would save
billions more. It is hard to imagine what
would justify a military requirement for a
new icbm capability beyond that offered
by a life-extended Minuteman III. As the
rand report points out, only Russia is ca-
pable of attacking all U.S. icbms. Such an
attack is highly unlikely, as Moscow could
not expect to escape a nuclear response,
either from icbms or other U.S. nucle-
ar forces in the strategic triad. Silo-based
Minuteman IIIs are survivable against all
other potential nuclear adversaries, includ-
ing China, and will likely remain so for
the foreseeable future. The Minuteman III
is armed with either a w78 or w87 nuclear
warhead, which both have yields of three
hundred kilotons or more. The National
Nuclear Security Administration is plan-
ning to develop an interoperable warhead
to replace the w78, which is older, at a
cost of $10-15 billion. But as Hans Kris-
tensen and Robert Norris note in their
report for the Bulletin of the Atomic Sci-
entists, “simpler life-extension of existing
8. Bomb Voyage! 59January/February 2016
designs could provide reliable warheads
at a fraction of the cost.” The w78 can
be retired and replaced by the w87, sav-
ing about $1 billion over the next decade.
Enough w87 warheads have already been
produced (more than five hundred) to arm
the entire icbm fleet.
A
complete rebuild of the U.S. nu-
clear arsenal is neither justified by
the external threat nor supported
by the federal budget. Many of these sys-
tems would go into production in the mid-
2020s, creating a budget bottleneck. Some
of these programs will have to be delayed
or cancelled. Waiting ten years to face this
inevitable result will waste billions of dol-
lars. A 2012 report from the Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (csba)
found that since 2001, the Pentagon has
spent close to $50 billion on programs
that were started but never finished. csba
found that, “while the cancellation of in-
dividual programs may have been justified
due to significant cost overruns or techni-
cal challenges, the aggregate effect is that a
significant portion of dod’s investment in
modernization over the past decade did not
result in force modernization.”
Let’s not do this again. The Cold War
is over and the size of nuclear arsenals has
been trending downwards. If the United
States can wait to buy new systems, it will
likely need fewer of them. As just one ex-
ample, the Navy built eighteen Ohio-class
submarines from 1981 to 1997 only to
decide later that it needed just fourteen.
Why? The Cold War ended, and U.S. and
Russian nuclear arsenals declined under
the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
These four extra subs and their subsequent
conversion to nonnuclear missions cost
about $16 billion.
In 2009 President Obama laid out an
ambitious vision of a world free of nuclear
weapons. Today his administration is slated
to invest a trillion dollars to rebuild the
arsenal for the next fifty years. As Obama
enters his last year in office, it is time to
change course. n
