Future Defense Spending: Nuclear Modernization

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Testimony

Future Defense Spending: Nuclear Modernization

Almost every U.S. nuclear delivery system, missile, and warhead will require some kind of modernization over the next ten to twenty years. Key elements of the nuclear command-and-control system and nuclear warhead infrastructure will too.

By James M. Acton

Published on Mar 23, 2021

Source: House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense

Nuclear weapons appear to help deter nuclear aggression and prevent large-scale conventional conflict in a small number of high-consequence contingencies. Ensuring the efficacy of nuclear deterrence, therefore, is in the national security interests of the United States and its allies—so too are cooperative efforts to reduce the risks of escalation and arms racing and to create the political and security conditions under which nuclear weapons could be safely eliminated. For appropriators, the most salient nuclear policy questions are those with financial implications—in particular, how should the United States maintain and modernize its nuclear forces and their supporting infrastructure?

Read the Testimony

This testimony was given before the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense.

About the Author

James M. Acton

Jessica T. Mathews Chair, Co-director, Nuclear Policy Program

Acton holds the Jessica T. Mathews Chair and is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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