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The American Empire in a Changing World



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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Repost: 'From 1940 through 1996, we spent nearly $5.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs'

from brookings institution......

"First, what did nuclear weapons cost the United States? From 1940 through 1996, we spent nearly $5.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs, in constant 1996 dollars. This chart shows what the total is when estimated future-year costs for dismantling nuclear weapons and disposing of surplus nuclear materials, and for managing and cleaning up some 50 years of nuclear waste resulting from nuclear weapons production are added in. If we could represent $5.8 trillion as a stack of dollar bills, it would reach from the Earth to the Moon and nearly back again, a distance of more than 459,000 miles.


The Government has never tried to track all nuclear weapons costs either annually or over time and as a result records in this regard are extremely spotty and in numerous instances non-existent. We know, for example, that in the early-to-mid-1950s, nuclear weapons were thoroughly integrated into what became known as conventional forces. This was done for two key reasons. One was that nuclear weapons were perceived to offer a "bigger bang for a buck." Seeking to do more with less, this reputed benefit appealed to the Eisenhower administration, which authorized a massive expansion of the nuclear stockpile; when Eisenhower entered office in 1953, the stockpile consisted of some 1,400 bombs; by the time he left in 1961, the total had risen to more than 24,000, with the majority of these being for battlefield use".........LINK

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