With Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recently announcing he will provide an additional $10 billion to improve the nation's nuclear forces, advocates of nuclear abolition are undoubtedly upset.

Over the past five years these detractors have published a series of reports decrying the cost of the nuclear force, largely without realizing that because the nuclear arsenal has been starved of funding for two decades that recent problems, at least in part, developed.

Thus, Hagel's decision is unfortunate news for disarmament advocates, who spent the past two weeks making tired and inaccurate arguments. These critics are misleading when they discuss the costs of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems because they consistently fail to provide necessary context to understand just how much the US spends on the nuclear arsenal.

With proponents of the nuclear arsenal offering little response, it is no wonder some Americans see the nation's nuclear forces as too expensive to maintain.

Nuclear Arms in Defense Budget

The 2014 Department of Defense base budget amounted to $526.6 billion, a steady decline from the height of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Some nuclear abolitionists have sought to incorporate a variety of expenses that are not directly related to the American nuclear arsenal (non-proliferation efforts, bombers performing conventional strike missions, and military personnel performing non-nuclear work) in order to inflate arsenal costs. The most accurate estimates suggest taxpayers spend about $15 billion on nuclear-force related activities and $11.8 billion on the National Nuclear Security Administration, for a total of $27 billion.

The nuclear arsenal (weapons and delivery platforms) accounts for 5.1 percent of the base defense budget. In other words, $95 out of every $100 the US spends on defense goes to non-nuclear programs and activities. To argue that devoting 5 cents of each defense dollar to an insurance policy that has effectively prevented World War III for seven decades is a bad investment is a specious argument.

Even at twice the cost — 10 percent of defense spending — nuclear weapons are the greatest value in the defense budget.

Some in the Pentagon and Congress claim each dollar spent on nuclear weapons is a dollar wasted because "we never use nuclear weapons," but such arguments show a fundamental ignorance of the role nuclear weapons play in deterring peer competitors from challenging the United States directly. We use nuclear weapons every day.

The fact that the greatest threat facing the United States comes from a terrorist group like the Islamic State is a testament to the effectiveness of nuclear weapons in deterring countries that have an actual ability to threaten US sovereignty.

Nuclear Arms in Federal Budget

In the context of the larger federal budget, the incongruity of the arguments offered by nuclear abolitionists becomes even more evident. In fiscal 2014, the federal government spent $3.78 trillion. The arsenal accounted for 0.7 percent of federal spending, less than one penny of each dollar the federal government spends.

According to a Government Accountability Office report released in April, the agency that oversees Medicare estimates that in fiscal 2013 almost $50 billion in improper payments, some of which was fraud, were made to the program. Improper and fraudulent payments to Medicare, then, were nearly double that of the budget for the nuclear arsenal. Reducing fraud and other errors in this federal program would more than pay for the arsenal's sustainment and modernization.

Nuclear Arms in Your Budget

Admittedly, discussions of billions and trillions of dollars are largely unfathomable for most people. If, as we suggest, nuclear weapons are the ultimate insurance policy, it may be more appropriate to compare the cost of nuclear weapons to the cost of, for example, health insurance.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average American family spent $16,351 on health insurance (premiums and company contributions) in 2014. That same family will spend between $152 and $304 for the ultimate protection the nuclear arsenal provides. Giving up one Starbucks coffee each week more than covers the average US family's contribution to the maintenance of our greatest defense.

Thus, when nuclear abolitionists suggest the nuclear arsenal is unaffordable, they are dead wrong. No other federal or defense programs provides Americans with a greater return on their investment. ■

Adam Lowther is a Research Professor at the Air Force Research Institute at Maxwell Air Force Base. Michaela Dodge is Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation. The views expressed are those of the authors alone.

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