The Washington Post Wrote:Aging U.S. nuclear arsenal slated for costly and long-delayed modernization


By Dana Priest, Sunday, September 16, 3:50 AM

The U.S. nuclear arsenal, the most powerful but indiscriminate class of weapons ever created, is set to undergo the costliest overhaul in its history, even as the military faces spending cuts to its conventional arms programs at a time of fiscal crisis.

For two decades, U.S. administrations have confronted the decrepit, neglected state of the aging nuclear weapons complex. Yet officials have repeatedly put off sinking huge sums into projects that receive little public recognition, driving up the costs even further.

Now, as the nation struggles to emerge from the worst recession of the postwar era and Congress faces an end-of-year deadline to avoid $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to the federal budget over 10 years, the Obama administration is overseeing the gargantuan task of modernizing the nuclear arsenal to keep it safe and reliable.

There is no official price tag for the effort to upgrade and maintain the 5,113 warheads in the inventory, to replace old delivery systems and to renovate the aging facilities where nuclear work is performed. A study this summer by the nonpartisan Stimson Center, a Washington think tank, estimated costs would be at least $352 billion over the coming decade to operate and modernize the current arsenal. Others say the figure could be far higher, particularly if the work is delayed even longer.

The timing does not fit with the nation’s evolving defense posture, either. Over the past decade, the U.S. military has moved away from nuclear deterrence and major military interventions in favor of more precise tactics rooted in Special Operations forces and quick tactical strikes deemed more effective against today’s enemies.

Federal officials and many outside analysts are nonetheless convinced that, after years of delay, the government must invest huge sums if it is to maintain the air, sea and land nuclear triad on which the country has relied since the start of the Cold War. Failing to act before the end of next year, they say, is likely to mean that there won’t be enough time to design and build the new systems that would be required if the old arsenal is no longer safe or reliable.

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I haven’t seen a moment like this,” Thomas P. D’Agostino, who leads the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the federal agency charged with managing the safety of the nuclear arsenal, said in an interview.

The debate over the future of the nation’s nuclear arsenal is playing out in Congress and within the administration. Public reports, interviews with government officials and outside experts and visits to nuclear facilities rarely seen by outsiders provided a portrait of the scope and cost of maintaining and refurbishing the nuclear stockpile underlying the debate.

Expense has loomed for years

At the heart of the overhaul are the weapons themselves. Renovating nuclear bombs and missiles to keep them safe and ready for use will cost tens of billions of dollars. Upgrading just one of the seven types of weapons in the stockpile, the B61 bomb, is likely to cost $10 billion over five years, according to the Pentagon. The next two types of bombs in line for modification are estimated to cost a total of at least $5 billion. By comparison, the operating budget for Fairfax County government next year will cost about $3.5 billion, including its vaunted school system.

Satellite Wrote:I thought the US economy was in trouble?

Foxino Wrote:This unsettles me.
Nuclear weapons should be the last resort in terms of war, are we expecting another war huh?

Dredragon Wrote:20 pineappleing 12. Gj America

Enzyme Wrote:The pineapple do you need 5,113 warheads for? 1000 should be plenty.

KhainiWest Wrote:How did we stop world war 2? Nuke

How did we stop the middle east? Nuke

SENSE.

Derosis Wrote:The communist countries that have theirs and threaten to use theirs?

Satellite Wrote:-snip-
When you don't get the point, you just don't get it.

You will never use 5113 nukes without destroying the whole earth. Never. It's not about who has the most nukes, but who uses them first and smartest. Though, when it comes to Russia vs. USA, both countries would probably end up bombing each other into extinction.

Derosis Wrote:The communist countries that have theirs and threaten to use theirs?

Also all this work is spreading money through the US economy, only thing that would be getting imported was needed materials we can't produce (which would probably be about half ~ 4/6 of that 352 billion USD).

Satellite Wrote:but who uses them first and smartest.