U.S. Has Spent $5.8 Trillion on Nuclear Arms Since 1940
peace through reason (prop1@prop1.org)
Wed, 01 Jul 1998 08:57:17 -0400
Hooray for Brookings Institute's new book "Atomic Audit" -- this figure's=
high enough to impact the most jaded taxpayer.... Hope you'll use this,=
and tell folks about HR-827, which seeks to use nuclear weapons funds=
instead to clean up the mess and convert the nuclear (and eventually other=
arms) industries.
U.S. Has Spent $5.8 Trillion on Nuclear Arms Since 1940, Study Says
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 1, 1998; Page A02=20
Since 1940, the United States has spent $5.8 trillion on
nuclear weapons programs, more than on any single
program except Social Security, according to a study
billed as the first comprehensive audit of the country's
effort to build a nuclear arsenal.
The study, released yesterday by the Brookings
Institution, ranked the expenditures leading to the
production of nuclear explosives third over the last 5 1/2
decades, behind other defense spending ($13.2 trillion)
and Social Security ($7.9 trillion). Nuclear weapons
ranked just ahead of welfare payments ($5.3 trillion) and
interest on the national debt ($4.7 trillion).
The audit, which calculated costs for nuclear research,
development, deployment, command and control,
defenses and dismantlement, was not undertaken to
determine whether the U.S. nuclear force was worth the
expenditure, said Stephen I. Schwartz, a guest scholar at
Brookings and chairman of the four-year project. Rather
it was designed to set the stage for "an honest and fully
informed debate to begin."
However, the study suggests that the price tag of the
nuclear program was allowed to escalate in part because
the public and Congress were not aware of the overall
costs. Schwartz wrote in the study that the "impetus to
manufacture and deploy large numbers of nuclear
weapons gathered strength because nuclear weapons
were considered less expensive than conventional
forces." Had the true costs been known, which would
have disproved that assumption, Schwartz continued,
"there almost certainly would have been a debate about
the wisdom" of the continued buildup of nuclear
weapons.
Paul Warnke, head of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency in the Carter administration, who
was aware of the Brookings study, disagreed. "I don't
think it would have made that much difference if the
American people knew the cost of nuclear weapons," he
said. "The people were scared of the Russian threat and
would have spent whatever it took. . . . They thought they
were buying an insurance policy and didn't care about
the premium."
Still, the Brookings study indicates the degree to which
the nuclear buildup outran public understanding. It shows
that when Defense Secretary Robert McNamara declared
in 1964 that a total nuclear force equivalent to 400
megatons (equal to 400 million tons of TNT) would have
been enough for mutually assured destruction with the
Soviet Union, the U.S. stockpile already totaled 17,000
megatons.
One of the study's initial findings was that only 7 percent
of the total cost for the weapons went for development
and manufacture of the actual warheads. Deployment of
weapons systems, such as bombers and missiles, and the
infrastructure to facilitate their use made up 86 percent
of the expenses, while much of the rest went for cleanup.
"In the end," Schwartz said, "cleanup costs may be as
much as the weapons cost in the first place."
Richard Haass, head of the Brookings national security
program, said the study had implications for India and
Pakistan as those two countries pursue their nuclear
programs. The hidden costs brought together in the audit
show those two countries that they "cannot have a fully
developed program on the cheap," Haass said.
John Pike, director of the Space Policy Project of the
Federation of American Scientists and a co-author of the
study, said that if the Indian and Pakistani governments
emulate the Chinese in having a deterrent nuclear
strategy, their overall costs would be equivalently much
less than those of the United States, which sought not just
to deter an attack, but to maintain the ability to retaliate
after a massive strike.
The study fuels criticism of a lack of accountability over
the years both within successive administrations and on
Capitol Hill for spending on nuclear weapons programs.
"While the costs of individual programs were debated
from time to time, the near total absence of data
documenting either annual or cumulative costs of the
overall effort made effective democratic debate and
oversight all but impossible," according to Michael
Armacost, president of Brookings and a former
undersecretary of state.
The study notes that spending on the current nuclear
arsenal has stood at about $35 billion annually, or
roughly 15 percent of the total defense budget. Although
new weapons are no longer being produced, the
stockpile has the equivalent explosive force of about
120,000 Hiroshima bombs, according to Schwartz. He
noted that the $4.5 billion spent annually to keep the
nuclear stockpile reliable is an amount similar to the
expense in years when weapons were still being
produced.
An Arsenal's Allowance
The United States has spent more on nuclear weapons
since 1940 than on all other categories besides Social
Security and nonnuclear defense, according to a
Brookings Institution report.
Total cost since 1940 in trillions of dollars* (adjusted
for inflation)
Nuclear weapons and infrastructure -- $5.8 trillion
SOURCE: Brookings Institution=20
=A9 Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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