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Subject: Spending on Nuclear Weapon Programmes - France, Russia, China, UK, etc.
Roman    1/29/2006 12:23:08 PM
From the nuclear audit we have approximate figures of U.S. spending on nuclear weapons (circa $5.5 trillion from 1940 to 1995). Regretfully, I cannot find any similar information regarding spending on annual and cumulative spending on nuclear armaments by other nations. Russian, Franch, Chinese and UK's outlays over the years would be particularly interesting to know, but spending of other nations (e.g. India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Germany, Japan, etc.) for such purposes would also be welcome. If anybody knows of any estimates for such spending for these countries, I would be grateful. Thanks!
 
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Roman    RE:Spending on Nuclear Weapon Programmes - France, Russia, China, UK, etc.    2/4/2006 3:16:31 AM
french_stratege: Interesting. France has to spend substantial sums on research and development of nuclear weapons. In contrast, I would guess the British nuclear programme that was and is tied to the American one, would be much cheaper as a result of using many U.S. technologies. That, and the fact that Britain has a smaller and less diverse nuclear deterrent than France. I believe France has a full triad while the UK only has nuclear submarines and of those only 4, while France has more. It would be interesting to compare British and French and Chinese spending - anybody has figures for UK and China On the other hand another interesting comparison would be between U.S. spending and Russian spending. BTW: jlb mentions current spending on nuclear weapons by France at about 10 billion EURO annually, but you mention the nuclear budget at only 3.1 billion EURO but agree with jlb. Am I missing something jlb: That is 3.3 trillion USD, not billion :). 3.3 billion contemporary dollars being converted to 5.5 billion 1995 dollars does sound like too little to me too, but those are the figures I read about... In any case the conversion does depend on what time period the bulk of the spending was concentrated in. For example, if it was during the 1980s nuclear build-up and spending on SDI as well as similar projects many of which never came to fruition than I find the figures believable. Nevertheless, it does sound like the conversion should be greater. In any case, the 5.5 trillion USD in 1995 dollars was mention as a very conservative estimate - something not specified near the 3.3 trillion contemporary dollar estimate, so the figure could indeed be much higher.
 
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french stratege    RE:Spending on Nuclear Weapon Programmes - France, Russia, China, UK, etc.    2/4/2006 11:39:28 AM
Jlb is making a mistake on today annual spending but is right on the approximatively 330 Billion figure. France was almost spending half of its procurement budget in nukes at its peak during ten years from beginning of sixties to seventies: In twelve years we developped 4 systems and field them: 64 Mirage 4 with 11 KC135, IRBM, 5 SLBM subs with their missiles and tactical missiles (pluton) plus all infrastructure and production facility and C4ISR.
 
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Yimmy    RE:Spending on Nuclear Weapon Programmes - France, Russia, China, UK, etc.    2/4/2006 12:03:29 PM
What does France operate today? I understand you no longer have land based IRBM's? Do you still have air-launched weapons? How many SSBN's?
 
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french stratege    RE:Spending on Nuclear Weapon Programmes - France, Russia, China, UK, etc.    2/4/2006 12:07:32 PM
Official French figure (actual figure are secrets) are 350 nukes: 48 SLBM on 4 subs and 80 ASMP air lauched. But 3 SSBN of Inflexible class are still in condition to take sea, Hades missiles have been stored and some ASMP and M4.
 
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jlb    RE:FS   2/4/2006 4:36:12 PM
The €10bn figure I mentionned was for all deterrent-related spendings, ie including everything from warhead acquisition to toilet paper for the Ile-longue base through ASMP maintenance and M2000N fuel and spare parts. It's a large part of the Marine Nationale's budget and a substantial part of the Armee de l'Air's too. I was quoting from memory, though, so feel free to cerrect me if I'm wrong.
 
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french stratege    jlb   2/4/2006 8:44:54 PM
You are wrong.Breakdown of cost are 800 m€ for sea based deterrent including buikding of fourth SSBN, 160 m€ for M2000N including ASMP and training, 240 m€ for warheads maintenance and rest for R&D.
 
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jlb    RE:FS   2/5/2006 9:05:18 PM
thanks for the precisions. I must admit I didn't go through the "bleus" :)
 
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Roman    RE:Spending on Nuclear Weapon Programmes - France, Russia, China, UK, etc.    2/8/2006 2:20:53 AM
Good info guys - thanks. So now we have figures for France and the U.S., which already makes some comparisons possible, but it would be really nice to have figures or estimates for other countries too. Anybody has any of those?
 
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