| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Despite pressure to reduce military budgets, the Obama administration is planning to increase spending significantly to modernize nuclear-armed missiles, submarines, and bombers and to maintain nuclear warheads in the decades ahead, according to budget documents released in March Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel testified before the House Armed Services Committee on March 6 that "tough, tough choices are coming" if the Pentagon is forced to make deep spending cuts as required by law. The services are considering cutting 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers and retiring an aircraft carrier, among other money-saving steps.
But the Pentagon is not proposing to scale back its highest-priority nuclear modernization programs. The Pentagon's proposed $496 billion budget for fiscal year 2015, released March 4, would "preserve all three legs of the nuclear triad," Hagel said, and includes hefty down payments for new delivery systems. The nuclear warhead programs, overseen by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous unit of the Energy Department, also would get a budget increase. The administration would pay for these increases in part by cuts to some lower-priority programs.
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