The Congressional Budget Office projected in a report released April 24 that plans for the U.S. nuclear forces as described in the fiscal 2025 budget would cost $946 billion for the 2025-2034 period.
Of the $946 billion, $817 billion is what is budgeted to “implement the plans for current and future delivery systems, warheads, command and control systems, and infrastructure as DoD and DOE have laid them out,” the report says. The other $129 billion is what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will encompass potential additional costs based on historic cost growth.
However, according to the report, the estimated cost of $454 billion for delivery systems and weapons, which would include $140 billion over 10 years for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), does not include the “significant additional increase in costs identified in a recent legislatively mandated review of the Sentinel program.”
The estimate includes “only a portion of the $63 billion cost increase” identified in the Nunn-McCurdy review because CBO bases its estimates on the amounts detailed in the fiscal 2025 budget request and associated documents.
“How the additional costs identified in the Nunn–McCurdy review would affect total costs over the 2025–2034 period is uncertain, for several reasons,” the report said. “The Sentinel program is in the process of being restructured, it will likely be delayed, and those delays could affect the costs of the Minuteman III program as well.”
Sentinel breached a threshold of 25% over baseline cost projections in January 2024, triggering a mandatory report to Congress under a law known as Nunn-McCurdy.
However, the program’s six-month Nunn-McCurdy review led then-DoD acquisition chief William LaPlante to certify that the program was essential to strategic deterrence and that there were no cheaper alternatives to meet the joint requirements.
As a result of the Sentinel re-baselining, the program is no longer in breach, as Sentinel awaits a restructuring late this year or early next year for a new Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase decision by DoD. Programs that run afoul of the Nunn-McCurdy guidelines in the fiscal 1983 defense authorization act are in significant breach for 15% unit cost overruns and critical breach for 25%.
The CBO updates the 10-year projection of costs of the U.S. nuclear forces every two years, and this year’s projection was $190 billion, or 25%, more than the 2023 projection for 2023-2032. The $454 billion cost for strategic nuclear delivery systems covers the nuclear triad, meaning ICBMs, long-range bombers, and fleet ballistic missile submarines or SSBNs.
