Resolving Ambiguity: Costing Nuclear Weapons Russell Rumbaugh, Nathan Cohn

This report provides an estimate of US spending on nuclear weapons that resolves most of the ambiguity created by that variance. It makes two key contributions to the debate about nuclear weapons spending and nuclear weapons policy. First, it clarifies there are few disagreements about the costs of particular components of the nuclear enterprise-which are usually based on official accounts. Instead, most of the ambiguity stems from disagreements about what should be included as nuclear costs under the broad umbrella of costs associated with or related to nuclear weapons. This report reviews official estimates and independent studies, and then arrays these in a like manner to demonstrate most disagreement is definitional.
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