Is much of the cost of nuclear weapons kept out of the Pentagon budget?
The cost of much of the U.S. nuclear arsenal has been funded separately from the Defense Department's budget since the creation of the atomic bomb under stringent secrecy during World War II. The Energy Department inherited those costs when it was created in 1977.
For fiscal 2020, ending Sept. 30, the Pentagon sought $718 billion. The Energy Department asked for $23.7 billion to cover its related national security role, a range of weapons-building and support programs.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit working to reduce risks from nuclear weapons, suggests the split budget contributed to rapid growth of the U.S. nuclear stockpile during the Cold War. "There was little financial disincentive for service officials to request a nuclear warhead when a conventional one might be just as much or even more appropriate," an analyst wrote in 2008.
