Upgrading U.S. Nukes Comes With Very Hefty Price Tag
Modernizing America’s nuclear force would likely cost more than a trillion dollars over the next three decades, the Congressional Budget Office says in a new report, even if President Trump decides against expanding the U.S. arsenal.“CBO estimates that the most recent detailed plans for nuclear forces, which were incorporated in the Obama Administration’s 2017 budget request, would cost $1.2 trillion in 2017 dollars over the 2017–2046 period: more than $800 billion to operate and sustain (that is, incrementally upgrade) nuclear forces and about $400 billion to modernize them,” the report says.
“That planned nuclear modernization would boost the total costs of nuclear forces over 30 years by roughly 50 percent over what they would be to only operate and sustain fielded forces, CBO estimates. During the peak years of modernization, annual costs of nuclear forces would be roughly double the current amount.”
Japan’s Trump-sized security headache. Uncertainty over the level of U.S. commitment to its allies under President Trump will intensify the debate in Japan over whether it should change its pacifist constitution, writes Hugh White in the Straits Times. And unless Japan wants to play second fiddle to a rising China, part of that debate will need to include going nuclear.
“Japan must consider the kind of strategic posture it should adopt if it loses U.S. support. That means especially how it would respond to China’s obvious and growing ambition to become East Asia's dominant power,” White says.
“Without the U.S. nuclear umbrella, Japan will need nuclear forces of its own unless it is content to become a small power in China’s East Asia. That is the real question that will lurk in the shadows as [Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plan to amend the constitution] unfolds.”
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