| Description |
1 online resource (69 pages) : illustrations (digital, PDF file) |
| Contents |
Executive summary -- Introduction -- The context of estimating the nuclear enterprise -- Our estimate -- Modernization and 10-year extrapolations -- Implications and conclusion |
| Summary |
Estimates of what the United States spends on nuclear weapons widely vary. This report provides an estimate of US spending on nuclear weapons that resolves most of the ambiguity created by that variance. It makes two key contributions to the debate about nuclear weapons spending and nuclear weapons policy. First, it clarifies there are few disagreements about the costs of particular components of the nuclear enterprise, which are usually based on official accounts. Instead, most of the ambiguity stems from disagreements about what should be included as nuclear costs under the broad umbrella of costs associated with or related to nuclear weapons. This report reviews official estimates and independent studies, and then arrays these in a like manner to demonstrate most disagreement is definitional. Second, this report takes a new approach to estimate the costs of the most uncertain part of the nuclear enterprise. Despite the greater granularity of this methodology, some uncertainty remains for two primary reasons: the difficulty in assigning costs of aerial refueling tankers that support strategic nuclear offensive forces, and the theoretical difficulty in clearly delineating what is strategic nuclear offensive forces. At the very least, this study should clarify that official estimates relying on a narrow definition of the nuclear enterprise, or even of strategic nuclear offensive forces, understate the actual costs the United States spends on nuclear weapons without settling once and for all what is the single right cost of the nuclear enterprise. Underlying debates about nuclear weapons spending is the policy debate about nuclear weapons themselves. Too often this more important debate is confused by the debate about costs. This report resolves the ambiguity that has long persisted in the costs of nuclear weapons in order to return the debate to the basic policy questions |
| Notes |
June 2012 |
|
Title from cover screen (viewed on June 8, 2012) |
|
Mode of access: World Wide Web |
|
System requirements: Adobe Reader |
| Subject |
Nuclear weapons -- United States -- Costs
|
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Nuclear weapons -- Costs.
|
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United States.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Cohn, Nathan
|
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Henry L. Stimson Center.
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| ISBN |
9780983667445 |
|
0983667446 |
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