Defense spending

US nuclear arsenal upgrade to exceed $1trillion

At a time when the US national debt stands at just over $20 trillion, American taxpayers find themselves stuck with a massive maintenance bill to keep the nation’s nuclear arsenal operational over the next three decades.

The modernization of US nuclear forces will carry a price tag estimated at $1.2 trillion from 2017 until 2046, according to the US Congress Budget Office (CBO) report.

That planned modernization would increase the total costs of maintaining the current number of nuclear weapons and delivery system by 50 percent over normal operating costs, according to the CBO.

The trillion-dollar question on everybody’s mind is: How exactly will the US government foot the bill for such a massive program?

“We never really knew where the money was coming from and now it is even less clear,” Jon Wolfsthal, former senior director for arms control and non-proliferation in the Obama administration, told the Guardian.

The CBO points out, however, that the modernization plan was attached to the Obama administration’s 2017 budget request, and may change in the context of Trump’s plans for US national security.