Nuclear Insurance You Can Bank On

The Congressional Budget Office is charged by Congress to carefully examine  the spending implications of government funded programs including those in the Department of War. Some decades ago, CBO assessed the cost of the nation’s nuclear deterrent particularly the Triad of strategic bombers, submarines and the sea launched ballistic missiles they carried and the land-based ICBMs in silos. The CBO also estimated the cost of the warhead and nuclear laboratories maintained by the Department of Energy (now the National Nuclear Security Administration within DOE) and the cost of our Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3). One early report garnered a lot of national attention because CBO headlined its report with the startling estimate that the nation’s nuclear deterrent was going to cost $1 trillion. Even in Washington, D.C., that was a lot of money.

So, in their 2013 report, for example, CBO trumpeted that nuclear forces would cost $1 trillion (over the next 30 years), generating headlines across the news media, engendering the shock and awe they wanted to create, hoping strong opposition in Congress would develop that would cut back significantly on the modernization effort. And just so Congress would get the message, another favorite regular past time of CBO was to do a regular excursion of killing the land based silo ballistic missiles to examine what force alternatives would provide what kind of budget savings.

CBO was strongly criticized for these sleight of hand magic tricks and eventually CBO made two key adjustments---they estimated the bomber costs at the 20 not 100 to be in the force. And CBO admitted that modernization should not include the ongoing sustainment and maintenance of the current legacy force.

Nonetheless CBO as one senior USAF general told me got its “bumper sticker and press release headline” and made nuclear investments look out of line with the rest of government requirements. The nuclear abolition enthusiasts took the number and ran with it and even came up with their own estimates near the $2 trillion mark by making the same mistakes that CBO was making but also adding even more of their own.

Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota (R-ND) put things in perspective two years ago when he explained that as a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee in the Senate, he had a front row seat when examining the nuclear portion of the defense budget. And yes, the Senator supports in his state two elements of the U.S. nuclear Triad---150 Minuteman missile silos and B52 strategic bombers, the only state with two parts of the nuclear Triad. Senator Hoeven laid out in late 2024 that the entirety of the nuclear Triad modernization cost for FY2025 for the nation was $18.6 billion annually for the B21 bombers, the Columbia-class submarines and companion upgraded D-5 missile and the Sentinel ICBM. One could add the costs of the associated NC3 and warheads, but whether or not the U.S. modernized the Triad these other elements would have had to be acquired irrespective of whether for the legacy or modernized force.

Now to be fair those Triad costs are now upwards of $26 billion as the country moves toward full annual production of each of the Triad elements. As acquisition costs increase, research and development costs decline. Also, sustainment and maintenance of our legacy forces continues, with some of those costs rising as much as 17% annually. What is remarkable is that despite being 55 years in  service, the 20^th USAF commanders have been able to sustain the Minuteman III force at a 98% alert rate, an extraordinary achievement, and a tribute to the leadership of 20^th USAF that has recently changed hands with the retirement of USAF Maj Gen Stacy Huser. [And hats off to our Ohio-class sub and B52/B2 bomber folks as well.]

CBO largely misses any acknowledgement of such challenges to sustaining the U.S. legacy nuclear force. After the collapse of the USSR, CBO went on many alternative defense budget excursions that had at their core an assumption (often reflecting the tenor of some Congressional initiatives) that U.S. restraint and minimum investments in defense including nuclear forces was the way to proceed. This included a parallel and nearly zero attention to the looming threat of China as a possible nuclear peer competitor. [Although the U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission regularly and fairly examined the national security dangers facing the U.S. due to China’s rapid and accelerating defense and technology investments.]

In looking into the future, CBO also largely missed another aspect of the entirety of the budget requirements for the nation’s nuclear deterrent. The Columbia class submarine and the Sentinel ICBM forces will both remain in the force through 2080-5. That means these two elements of the nuclear Triad will have to be replaced, under currently projected conditions, but not for half a century or more. Using the current estimates for the research, development, and acquisition costs of Sentinel ($140 billion) and Columbia ($138 billion), plus $15 billion for the requited new and life extended warheads, the costs now to the U.S. taxpayers for each of the next 30 years comes to roughly  $9.76 billion a year, which is more than what Americans spend for food on the 4^th of July ($7 billion) and 1/122nd of what Americans spend on insurance each year. And for 80 years that nuclear insurance policy called deterrence has never had to cash out.

Peter Huessy is President and Founder of GeoStrategic Analysis.

image: A B-52H Stratofortress is parked on the flight line during Exercise Global Thunder 26 (GT26) at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, Oct. 23, 2025. Strategic deterrence includes a triad of nuclear delivery platforms and associated support systems; an intelligence and sensing apparatus to give indications and warnings of incoming threats; assured national and nuclear command, control and communications; the necessary infrastructure to sustain and maintain reliable warheads; a credible missile defense. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Wesley Davies)