Foreign-policy victories in the Biden administration have been a dwindling commodity in a dwindling community. His State Department struggles to accomplish the most basic of functions, like evacuating civilians from Afghanistan and Sudan. Beijing’s surveillance balloons over the Midwest and spy bases in Cuba are rewarded with a parade of Biden cabinet officials groveling for bilateral dialogues with Xi Jinping, who delights in the optics of an America humbled before him. Oil-rich Gulf States, fatigued by moralistic lectures on climate change and cultural finger wagging, are swiveling to China and Russia. And our diplomats often behave in strange ways, funding oddities such as drag-queen story hours in Ecuador while China cements its grip on the Panama Canal and floods military assistance and capital into Central America. The quote might be apocryphal, but one southeast Asian official was rumored to have said “China shows up and builds us a new bridge and a new port. The U.S. shows up with a lecture.”
So it is pleasant to hear of the rare occasion when American diplomats surprise taxpayers by acting in America’s own interest. And here credit is owed where credit is due, the trilateral defense accord between the U.S., United Kingdom, and Australia has been an unquestioned notch in the win column. Called AUKUS, pronounced like an eagle’s cry awk-us, the agreement is a dog’s breakfast of weapons sharing and joint tech development. Think artificial intelligence, quantum computing, electronic warfare, and other forms of sophisticated geekery. The cornerstone of the agreement deals with nuclear attack submarines. The Royal Australian Navy has long been a potent operator of attack subs. But theirs run on diesel and battery power, whereas the modern U.S. and U.K. fleets run on the atom. A nuclear-powered submarine is faster and can stay underwater for longer periods of time. Only six nations have nuclear subs. Under AUKUS, America will send Canberra some of our Virginia-class boats, and thus Australia will become the seventh.
An empowered Australia is good for America. The Aussies know what they are about. Their sailors are skilled, their kit is first rate, and Australian flag officers now fill senior billets in American military commands. They have fought, and died, alongside Americans in almost every major conflict since the first World War. In a world where China is looking for a fight, it is well and good to have Australia in our corner.
That said, every silver lining has a cloud. And that is the sad state of American shipbuilding. The Navy says we need 66 attack submarines. We have 49, a number will soon drop to 46. Worse, while the Navy claims 66 total hulls is the target, reality dictates that this is a floor not a ceiling. When I worked these issues in the Senate, I always found it odd that the goal of 66 attacks subs stayed static as the number of Chinese battle-force ships rose and rose and rose. The real number is no doubt closer to 80-85 hulls with room for growth. In 1989, we had 97 boats with 19 under construction, in maintenance, or being reactivated. So we’re low. Far too low. Australia is a good ally that can act as America’s right arm in a war with Beijing. But it is a valid question if now is the time for America to be shedding even more submarine hulls.
This hard-nosed reality was made clear by Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the head Republican on the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, in the WSJ:
Nearly 40% of U.S. attack submarines cannot be deployed because of maintenance delays. For example, the USS Connecticut had an accident in the South China Sea in 2021 and likely won’t be operational until 2026.
The U.S. submarine industrial base is producing an average of 1.2 Virginia-class attack submarines a year, short of the two our Navy needs. There are many reasons for this underperformance. For years, the U.S. government purchased only one submarine annually—hardly enough to maintain a strong industrial base.
By comparison, during the 1980s we bought four times as many. The effort to ramp up production to a rate of two attack submarines a year has been plagued with workforce and supply-chain challenges.
To keep the commitment made under Aukus, and not reduce our own fleet, the U.S. would have to produce between 2.3 and 2.5 attack submarines a year.
The Navy has suggested that we could fill the long-term gap by shifting skilled workers on the Columbia submarine program to the Virginia or SSN(X) attack subs when it wraps in 2045. But that is not a solution. We will need more than twelve Columbias, those are the fat-hulled subs pregnant with nuclear ballistic missiles, as China expands its nuclear forces. You cannot grow a master shipbuilder with a one-off dump of supplemental funds into a presidential budget request, as some have suggested. Nor can you order a yard to do 30 percent more things on existing or inflation-adjusted budgets and expect new subs to pop out like a rabbit from a magician’s hat.
The threat from China’s fleet is serious, so we want the Royal Australian Navy armed to the gills. They are so integrated with us they may as well be part of the U.S. Navy. But this is a problem too common with the Biden administration. A good idea made worse by rosy estimates and suspect planning. The next presidential budget dump in late winter will signal to Australia and Britain if they are serious or not. If the White House asks Congress for real money, with a real multi-year intent behind a real effort to unscrew our production and maintenance woes, they might just make their one foreign-policy victory a reality.