Estimated 1998 Spending on U.S. Nuclear Weapons and Weapons-Related Programs

The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project was completed in August 1998 and resulted in the book Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 edited by Stephen I. Schwartz. These project pages should be considered historical.

(in billions of current dollars) ¹Department of Defense

- Strategic nuclear forces — $7.5
- Tactical nuclear and dual-capable forces — $1.0
- Command, control, communications, and intelligence — $6.0
- Operation and maintenance — $4.0
- Research and development — $.400
- Defense Special Weapons Agency — $.300

Department of Energy

Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program — $4.3
Other defense programs (safeguards and security, intelligence, verification and arms control technology, nonproliferation, security investigations, fissile material control and disposition, worker transition) — $.968
Naval nuclear propulsion — $.335

Subtotal operational nuclear forces — $24.8

Department of Defense
Defense Environmental Restoration Account — $.500
Department of Energy
Environmental restoration and waste management — $5.4

Department of Justice
Radiation Exposure Compensation Act payments —$.030

Subtotal cold war legacies — $5.9

Department of Defense

National and theater missile defense — $3.8
Cooperative Threat Reduction — $.400
On-Site Inspection Agency — $.040 (Now Defense Threat Reduction Agency)

- Total Estimated 1998 Nuclear Weapons Budget — $35.1 ²
  
  Notes
  
  ¹Adapted from Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (Brookings Institution Press, 1998).
  
  ²This figure is 14 percent of all appropriated spending for “national defense.” Not included are a portion of the Navy’s costs for strategic antisubmarine warfare, the Bureau of Export Administration (Department of Commerce), Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Department of Labor), the U.S. Customs Service (Department of the Treasury), and the U.S. Geological Survey (Department of the Interior).

Copyright © 1998 The Brookings Institution