Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2025 to 2034

The Congressional Budget Office updates its projections of the 10-year costs of nuclear forces every two years. This report contains CBO's projections for the 2025–2034 period, which are based on the Department of Defense's (DoD's) and the Department of Energy's (DOE's) fiscal year 2025 budget requests, submitted in March 2024.

Costs of Current Plans

If carried out, DoD's and DOE's plans to operate, sustain, and modernize current nuclear forces and purchase new forces would cost a total of $946 billion over the 2025–2034 period, or an average of about $95 billion a year, CBO estimates.

That total includes $357 billion to operate and sustain current and future nuclear forces and other supporting activities; $309 billion to modernize strategic and tactical nuclear delivery systems and the weapons they carry; $72 billion to modernize facilities and equipment for the nuclear weapons laboratory complex; $79 billion to modernize command, control, communications, and early-warning systems; and $129 billion to cover potential additional costs in excess of projected budgeted amounts estimated using historical cost growth.

How Costs Have Changed

CBO's current estimate of costs for the 2025–2034 period is 25 percent (or $190 billion) larger than its 2023 estimate of $756 billion, which covered the 2023–2032 period. Of that amount, $157 billion comes from differences in CBO's current and 2023 estimates of budgeted amounts for nuclear forces, and $33 billion comes from differences in the agency's estimates of potential additional costs based on historical cost growth.

Of the $157 billion increase in budgeted amounts, 59 percent (or $93 billion) is projected to occur from 2025 to 2032—the span of years that overlap in both estimates. The increase during those overlapping years is the result of higher costs for some programs, primarily for developing and fielding the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile system, including modernizing silos and other infrastructure; modernizing DoD's command, control, communications, and early-warning systems; and modernizing DOE's production facilities. The remaining 41 percent (or $65 billion) of the $157 billion increase in budgeted amounts arises because the 10-year period covered by the current estimate begins and ends two years later than the period covered by the previous estimate.

Budgeted Amounts for Nuclear Forces, by Activity, 2025 to 2034

Billions of dollars

DOE = Department of Energy; NC3 = nuclear command, control, and communications.