The fight to bring rationality to the US military budgeting process, and the sheer size of our military budget, are symbolized by the two segments of the graphic above. Chuck Spinney, along with John Boyd (yes, that John Boyd) and my neighbor Jim Burton, among others, spent large portions of their careers arguing that there was a better way to solve defense problems than to simply throw money at them. Chuck made the cover of Time in 1983. As shown at right, about 20 years later, the US military budget was about the same as the sum of those of the next 20 highest spending countries. It's pretty much the same story today. These bits are presented as background, so we will all be reminded that the current spending level is not what it is because we are trying to catch up, but rather because it has become habitual.
In previous posts on the US nuclear weapons program three particular elements of the US nuclear forces modernization program, forced upon the Obama administration as the price for Senate confirmation of New START and continued under the Trump and Biden administrations, have been suggested for cancellation or restructuring: the Sentinel ICBM [2], the Plutonium pits manufacturing effort [3] and the Ship Launched Cruise Missile - Nuclear (SLCM-N) [4], leading to savings of hundreds of billions of dollars, and without adverse effect on our security. This post is about the numbers of nuclear warheads and the spending on nuclear weapons worldwide. The intent is to reinforce the foregoing contention, dispute various public statements concerning other nations' nuclear weapons programs, and perhaps to provide some insights as to how we might act to prevent mushrooming of the current trend.
Let's start with numbers of weapons.
The soon-to-expire New START treaty limits both the US and Russia to a total of 1700+ deployed strategic nuclear warheads, so most of our arsenals are in storage, ready to be deployed. Other countries are not bound by that treaty and, except for France and the UK, have few if any nuclear warheads at the ready. Kindly take notice of the PRC in comparison with the US and Russia. China would have to more than triple their number of nuclear weapons, and increase their deployed force by a factor of more than 70, just to be on a par with the currently deployed numbers possessed by the US or Russia. Arguably, China has no incentive to talk about nuclear disarmament in this situation. Moreover, the warnings and concerns about China's growing nuclear arsenal ring hollow when the US is pursuing a plan that would allow us to quickly increase our number of deployed warheads by at least 800 upon expiration of New START.[6]
The above graphic is slightly misleading because the destructive power of the individual warheads is not taken into account. It appears that the US has an advantage over the Russians in this regard, owing to the approximately three-fold advantage in land-based ICBM warhead yields [7].
Another take away from the chart is that the US, Russia and France each, individually, possess more than a sufficient number of deployed warheads to cause a catastrophic disruption of the planet's climate. This can be seen by comparing those countries' deployed warhead numbers with the totals for India and Pakistan. As related in [8], an almost all-out nuclear war between those countries would be sufficient to trigger a nuclear winter. Given that a nuclear war is bound to occur, even if by accident [9], might it not be prudent to take steps to shrink the big arsenals?
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F63200777-23fb-4229-9222-67ea88bc6ef9_1890x1260.png)
Finally, it's about money. As shown graphically above, in 2023 the US spent more money on nuclear weapons than all other nuclear powers combined. China, the second biggest spender, spent only about a fifth of what the US did. Now look at the orange bars. If a country's spending in 2023 was the same as in the average over the five years 2019-23, its 2023 spending would be 20% (corresponding to the solid red horizontal line on the graph). Every country was above that level, meaning that they all increased their spending in 2023 as compared to prior years on average. Notice also that the increase for the US was greater (percentage wise) than either China or Russia. Given how much we outspend them in dollar terms, what that means is that the difference is accelerating. The reality flies in the face of statements by the nuclear weapons community about the need for further US increases to counter rising nuclear threats abroad.
A good example of the kind of double speak used by politicians when talking about strategic weapons was provided in the recent appearance of White House advisor and senior National Security Council member Pranay Vaddi at the 2024 annual meeting of the Arms Control Association (ACA). Referring to the soon-to-expire New START treaty, he stated "that the United States will continue to abide by New START limits for the duration of the Treaty, so long as Russia does the same." At last year's meeting, NSC advisor Jake Sullivan had invited the Russians to undertake talks on a new arms control treaty but was rebuffed, signaling the possibility that New START will expire with neither a treaty nor negotiations in place. Vaddi said “We must be prepared for that possibility—that these constraints disappear without replacement”, highlighting President Biden's statement at the UN last September “no matter what else is happening in the world, the United States is ready to pursue critical arms control measures.” He then went on to repeat the White House assertion that “(W)e do not need to increase our nuclear forces to match or outnumber the combined total of our competitors to successfully deter them.” All well and good. But then, to the chagrin of most of us in the audience, he contradicted himself by saying “Absent a change in the trajectory of adversary arsenals, we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase from current deployed numbers is required.” Only this last statement was picked up in reporting by the New York TImes [11]. Hopefully, having seen the numbers you will disagree strongly enough to let your Congressional delegation know that the time has come for the US to exercise real leadership in the world by reducing the size of its nuclear arsenal.
PS: Lest you have the impression that the Biden administration is enamored with nuclear weapons, please remember first that they have tried to cancel SLCM-N, and second that the plans for a second Trump administration are far worse [12]. In the Foreign Affairs article upon which [12] was based, O'Brien wrote "The United States has to maintain technical and numerical superiority to the combined Chinese and Russian nuclear stockpiles." This, and his call for resumption of nuclear testing (!) provide yet another compelling reason to get out the vote for Joe Biden and the Democrats in November!
Notes
[1] https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19830307,00.html
[2] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/the-sentinel-system-fc2
[3] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/plutonium-its-the-pits
[4] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/tactical-schmach-tical-a-nuke-is
[5] SIPIRI, 2024 Yearbook; Chapter 7: Nuclear Forces, https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/YB24%2007%20WNF.pdf
[6] The 800 number arises from the design capability of the Sentinel to carry three warheads. 400 missiles x 2 added warheads per missile = 800 warheads. But that is a conservative estimate because it does not account for the possibilities of adding warheads to the Trident missiles aboard our ballistic missile submarines and of filling the remaining 50 Minuteman silos with Sentinels.
[7] Kristensen, H.M., et al., Russian nuclear weapons, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2024.2314437, and United States nuclear weapons, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2024.2339170. It is not possible to state an exact numerical advantage due to gaps in available information and variability in choices on both sides, for instance the ability to mix and match warheads of differing yields on SLBMs. Perhaps that's why the Congressional Research Service fails to tally yields in its reporting on Russian nuclear capabilities https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45861
[8] Toon, O.B., et al., Rapidly expanding nuclear arsenals in Pakistan and India portend regional and global catastrophe, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aay5478
[9] https://stephenschiff.substack.com/p/lets-do-away-with-nuclear-weapons
[10] ICAN, Surge: 2023 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending, https://assets.nationbuilder.com/ican/pages/4079/attachments/original/1718371132/Spending_Report_2024_Singles_Digital.pdf?1718371132
[11] New York Times, US considers expanded nuclear arsenal, reversing decades of cuts, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/us/politics/us-nuclear-russia-china.html?emci=b93d2f22-2b2f-ef11-86d2-6045bdd9e096&emdi=af392813-442f-ef11-86d2-6045bdd9e096&ceid=30329012
[12] Newsweek, Ex-Trump advisor wants him to reverse 30 year old nuclear weapons policy, https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-national-security-adivser-nuclear-weapons-policy-1914473?emci=953be002-1333-ef11-86d2-6045bdd9e096&emdi=d7b29aa8-b434-ef11-86d2-6045bdd9e096&ceid=30571370 Incidentally, the desire to resume nuclear weapons testing may be part of the reason why renewal and extension of the RECA was blocked by MAGA in the House.