USA nuclear weapons numbers shrink, but nuclear weapons budget balloons out

Why the US nuclear budget grows while the stockpile of warheads shrinks
Obama’s plan to modernize and replace the nuclear arsenal will soon push nuclear weapons spending to Cold War levels Aljazeera America, August 7, 2015  by Michael Pizzi   @michaelwpizzi & Michael Keller   @mhkeller “……… American taxpayers will soon be spending more on nuclear weapons in real dollars than they have since the end of the Cold War. In October 2013, just four months after calling for yet another one-third reduction in the stockpile, President Barack Obama announced plans to “modernize” the entire nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years, arguing that updating and replacing the so-called nuclear triad — the submarines, jets and ballistic missiles designed to deliver warheads — will help create a leaner, sleeker nuclear fleet. But leaner doesn’t mean cheaper, at least not in the short term. According to a recent study by two researchers at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Jeffrey Lewis and Jon Wolfsthal, Obama’s modernization program could carry a price tag of over $1 trillion, vaulting nuclear weapons spending relative to the overall defense budget to a level comparable to the 1980s………

August 7, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war