A new congressionally-mandated report has found that ending the last remaining nuclear pact with Russia would cost the U.S. up to $439 billion in modernization costs in addition to another $28 billion for maintenance.
The demise of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which is set to expire in February, could also cost next to nothing, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, published Tuesday, found.
“DoD’s one-time costs could range widely, from zero if the United States chooses not to make any changes to its current plans, to about $100 million to $172 billion if it expanded its (nuclear) forces to START II levels, to $88 billion to $439 billion if it expanded to START I levels,” the CBO’s press release announcing the study said.
New START, as the deal is known, limits the number of deployable American and Russian nuclear weapons at 1,550. The accord also reduced by half the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers each side may have and set up a new inspection and verification regime to prevent cheating.
The White House has hesitated to extend New START and has been conducting a review amid concerns about Russian violations — denied by Moscow — and the challenge posed by China’s small but growing nuclear arsenal.
“If the New START treaty expired, the United States could choose to make no changes to its current plans for nuclear forces, in which case it would incur no additional costs,” the study that was mandated by Democratic members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees found.
“If the United States chose to increase its forces in response to the expiration of the treaty, modest expansions could be relatively inexpensive and could be done quickly. Larger expansions could be quite costly, however, and could take several decades to accomplish.”
But the potential of the multi-hundred billion dollar costs paired with national security implications could be too risky, two top national security Democrats argued.
“While this report only begins to account for the costs of the Administration’s preposterous claims that we can ’spend the adversary into oblivion,’ it is further proof of why New START is essential to U.S. and international security,” Rep. Adam Smith, Washington state Democrat and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a joint statement.
The pair called on the Trump administration to immediately extend the treaty for another five years, citing financial and national security implications.
“If the United States lets the New START Treaty expire, Russia, which is already ahead of America’s nuclear modernization program, would use a U.S. exit from the New START Treaty to quickly expand its arsenal without any legal constraints for the first time in 50 years,” they wrote.
“America cannot afford a costly and dangerous nuclear arms race, particularly in the middle of our current economic, political, and health crises.”
• Lauren Toms can be reached at lmeier@washingtontimes.com.
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