Cutting Nuclear Nonproliferation Funding Will Undermine U.S. National Security

In March, Congress transferred $185 million from a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) program focused on nonproliferation to one responsible for designing, building, maintaining, and transporting U.S. nuclear weapons. The latter program does need increased funding, especially given that seven nuclear systems are in various phases of refurbishment, design, or production, and some of the infrastructure dates back to the Manhattan Project.

But increasing the weapons budget while slashing the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN) funding is a recipe for national security failure—even more so after the administration of President Donald Trump has requested an even more drastic reduction to DNN in its proposed budget. Making such steep cuts is counterproductive: Not only could it increase nuclear proliferation and terrorism threats, but it will also make the job of nuclear deterrence even more difficult.

Meeting the U.S. national security goals of credible and effective nuclear deterrence will be more challenging and the United States will be less safe if nuclear weapons proliferate beyond the nation-states that have them today, adversaries’ arsenals become unconstrained by verifiable arms agreements, weapons-usable material falls into dangerous hands or out of regulatory control, or adversaries take actions (such as deploying nuclear weapons in space) counter to U.S. interests. U.S. technical capability to detect and hold adversaries accountable for dangerous behavior is a key part of deterring such activities, and DNN programs are designed to prevent them from happening, deter adversaries from taking such actions, or to detect them early.

The Importance of Arms Control

The value of arms control to deterrence has been acknowledged for decades. Arms control is neither an imposed limitation nor a gift to an adversary, but a way to maintain stability and predictability in a nuclear relationship.

The U.S. nuclear force is designed to address adversary capability. As the first Trump administration’s nuclear posture review concluded, “arms control can contribute to U.S., allied, and partner security by helping to manage strategic competition among states.” It noted that arms control can establish cooperation and reduce the risk of miscalculation, particularly by codifying nuclear postures “in a verifiable and enforceable manner.” To achieve these objectives through negotiation with Russia or China, the United States needs to continue to invest in the technologies and people critical to verifying future arms control agreements.

If U.S. adversaries’ nuclear arsenals are unconstrained, the deterrence job becomes harder for U.S. nuclear planners and would likely drive a decision that the United States needs more, and possibly more types of, nuclear weapons. This added demand would be difficult to meet with the inherent constraints of the aging infrastructure, as well as the challenges of the current modernization programs, which are already projected to cost over a trillion dollars. In addition to being safer, it is more fiscally responsible to prevent an arms race than to engage in one.

“Trust, but Verify”

Proposals for further sharp cuts to the nonproliferation budget suggest a lack of recognition of the relationship between DNN’s activities and nuclear deterrence. DNN develops and tests the technical measures to verify arms control agreements. Verification tools—the heart of arms control have been used since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) was signed by former president George H.W. Bush in 1991. However, these measures are not static. They must match the scope of any agreement and keep up with technology.

An arms agreement that furthers U.S. interests may not be possible in the near future, but Washington must be prepared to seize the moment if it arises. This means continuing to pursue and assess technologies that could verify compliance or noncompliance with future arms agreements. The proposed cuts to DNN threaten such preparations.

Other Cuts

The DNN budget also allocates money for the U.S. government’s nuclear counterproliferation, nonproliferation, and counterterrorism technical backbone. Through these programs, the U.S. national laboratories develop monitoring and verification tools for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the “watchdog” for countries such as Iran. DNN also builds U.S. national capabilities to detect clandestine nuclear weapons–related activities. Just as more nuclear weapons in Russia or China would stress our deterrent, more countries with nuclear weapons would force us to reconsider our nuclear requirements. DNN also funds programs to detect loose nuclear material abroad before it can get to the United States, to eliminate nuclear material so it can never fall into the wrong hands, to protect American cities and major events (such as the presidential inauguration and Super Bowls) from nuclear or radiological terrorism, and (in a nightmarish, worst-case scenario) to disarm a terrorist nuclear weapon if it were discovered.

Some view the work that DNN does with partner countries, more than 100 at last count, as foreign assistance. This is both false and foolish. The overwhelming majority of funding for NNSA’s projects with foreign partners does not go to those countries, but is spent in the United States. DNN funds U.S. national laboratories for research and development and to build experimental test beds. It contracts with U.S. companies to build equipment, detectors, and other tools, which are then deployed by partner governments to mitigate threats that could otherwise impact the U.S. homeland. The reduction in these budgets is a direct cutoff of funding for U.S. industry and puts American jobs at risk.

The president’s budget request for NNSA does include more money for staff and salaries. As the number and scope of programs in the nuclear weapons enterprise has rapidly grown in the past decade, the NNSA has become significantly understaffed. Reductions in the already stretched workforce slow mission delivery at a time when many are justifiably calling for the national security enterprise to move faster. A 2021 internal study using Office of Personnel Management methodology showed that the NNSA was hundreds of roles short of what would be needed to exercise effective oversight of its multibillion-dollar projects, harming its ability to deliver critical national security capabilities on time or on budget.

Bottom Line

As Congress considers the president’s budget request for NNSA, the relevant committees should ask themselves what the best option is to sustain the effectiveness of U.S. nuclear deterrence and national security. A more balanced and effective approach to achieving U.S. nuclear deterrence goals could be achieved by restoring funding for crucial DNN efforts. Cutting nonproliferation funding would be lose-lose: harming programs with valuable near-term threat-reduction benefits and making deterrence less sustainable for a future with multiple nuclear-armed adversaries.