The United States reducing its nuclear weapons spending is not the answer to its budget problem because it is not a “big swinger,” in terms of the budget, according to the Pentagon’s number-two civilian.
Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday U.S. annual spending on nuclear weapons is about $16 billion, or three-percent out of a total Defense Department budget of around $525 billion. Carter said nuclear delivery systems, like bombers, subs and ground systems, account for about $12 billion while nuclear command-and-control (C2) systems account for about $4 billion.
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| Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. Photo: DoD. |
“They’re not the answer to our budget problem,” Carter said at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colo. “They’re just not that expensive.”
The Pentagon is considering all options due to sequestration budget cuts and declining defense spending after over 10 years of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Barack Obama advocated reducing the American nuclear arsenal to just above 1,000 warheads during a speech in Berlin, Carter said. Obama said he wanted to reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons by up to one-third, in concert with Russia enacting cuts of its own. The Russians have said they have concerns about that as some experts believe they are reliant on their nuclear inventory to make up for shortcomings in conventional arms.
“The goal is to get Russian reduction,” Carter said. “Stop proliferation, get people to control fissile materials more closely. That’s what we want.”
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA) Senior Fellow Evan Braden Montgomery argued in a recent study that past U.S. nuclear reductions have not held global proliferation in check because they presuppose that the nuclear strategies, capabilities and posture of other nations are developed largely in response to American actions. Montgomery said the development of nuclear capabilities is often driven by local considerations (Defense Daily, July 3).
Sequestration–the decade-long $1.2 trillion cut to defense and non-defense spending that started in March–would tap $52 billion from the Pentagon’s coffers in fiscal year 2014 if lawmakers remain at odds over if and how to stop the reductions (Defense Daily, July 11).