America faces a stark threat to its naval dominance in China. America has attempted to upgrade the Pacific Fleet, build alliances in the region, and “pivot to Asia” since 2010. So we’re not sleeping on this. But we are hitting the snooze button over and over again. Importantly, strategic submarine production is way down and way behind.
China is an ascendant naval power and, since 2021, has a larger navy than the U.S. The U.S. fleet has fallen from a recent peak of 289 ships in active commission in 2014 to 239 today. Meanwhile, the Chinese fleet is growing and hovers somewhere near 400 vessels.
But America has a plan to stem the tide: Grow the fleet, especially of submarines, in U.S. and allied service.
Submarines in the Pacific
The value of the submarines becomes more apparent the more you look at Pacific operations. For instance, right now, China relies on ballistic missiles to keep American carrier groups away, but those missiles are essentially useless against the smaller and stealthier subs that can evade them entirely by diving. China’s growing fleet has little experience and is showing growing pains, especially in shipboard technology, and so it’s not clear that China can effectively hunt U.S. or allied submarines. American logistics in the Pacific, a strength overall, could be heavily challenged during a war, but submarines are self-reliant for months at a time.
And, one of our strongest allies in the region, Australia, wanted to buy American submarines in order to improve interoperability and defend their own shipping lanes and shores. They even promised $3 billion in earnest money, and 2025’s $500 million payment just hit the account in January. This deal is the first key to a security alliance between Australia, the U.S., and the U.K., named AUKUS.
AUKUS and U.S.
The deal calls for a batch of Virginia-class submarines followed by the “SSN-AUKUS,” a new submarine based on British design and stuffed full of the best American technology.
Just one small wrinkle: America has never met its goal for Virginia-class submarine production. It needs to double the current rate to do so, even as the Trump administration promises defense spending cuts of 8% per year for the next five years. And since Australia can’t get those Virginia-class submarines without the Trump administration signing off that it’s willing to give them up, there’s a surge in Australian calls to scrap the deal and find another submarine supplier, maybe France or Sweden, where Australia won’t rely on American shipyards or spare parts.
If Australia backs out of the deal, the per-unit cost of America’s submarines will rise once again. And, for what it’s worth, the profit and wages from the deal would then flow entirely to Europe, not the states.
Attempts to fix submarine production
Obviously, policymakers are aware that we’re not producing as many subs as we would like. A February Congressional Research Service report found that America has produced 1.2 Virginia-class submarines per year since 2022. The Navy is trying to get that up to two per year by 2028 and then to 2.33 per year to service its own needs and the Australia submarine deal.
And three Congresspeople just announced a new bill to try and get to the bottom of the issues. The Save Our Shipyards Act would create a commission charged with investigating what has gone wrong in American shipbuilding, whether it’s up to maintaining our national defense in its current state, and how to get it on track if not. The group is led by Army veteran and Republican Rep. Mark E. Green alongside Navy veteran and Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans and Air Force veteran and Democrat Rep. Don Davis.
Build Submarines
This isn’t the first time America has tried to give submarine production a shot in the arm. The “Build Submarines” initiative from BlueForce Alliance and the U.S. Navy features a slick ad campaign and broad outreach to try and bring literally thousands of workers into the maritime construction pipeline. The results in the FY24 program report show some gaps, though. Industry partners listed over 105,000 jobs but only 58,000 job hunters created profiles. The report doesn’t say how many job hunters made it into a role.
But program reports massive increases in candidates and job matches in areas with new, state-level training pipelines. A new series of pipelines in the northeast allowed industry there to hire 4 times the new employees they onboarded in FY23, reaching 2,700 new job placements. Obviously, growing those pipelines and similar programs across the U.S. would make a huge difference. And those jobs exist in all 50 states.
Australia’s submarine production woes
Of course, that could be cold comfort to Australia if America never actually catches up enough to sell to them. Meanwhile, some American allies are seeing the U.S. as less-than-reliable, like Portugal which suddenly pulled out of a deal to buy F-35s. The outgoing defense minister directly cited “predictability of our allies” as a deciding factor.
And Australian leaders are under pressure at home to deliver submarines quickly and in-line with Australia’s defense needs. The Virginia-class and SSN-AUKUS subs are seen as potentially too big and coming too late. And the pressure only ramped up when it was discovered that China conducted live-fire drills between Australia and New Zealand in February. At least according to open-source reporting, Australia appeared to be unaware until commercial pilots reported that Chinese ships were diverting them away from the exercise.
What happens next?
Well, Congress is trying to wrap its hands around the problem. The Navy has worked with industry for a few years now to try and get caught up. If BlueForge Alliance can keep growing talent for its defense contractors, then the Navy might be able to improve its submarine production.
To that end, though, it’s worth noting that industry likes steady and predictable partnerships. But the roles of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Chief of Naval Operations are both currently held by acting personnel after sudden firings in February. Congress has not yet set a date to vote on the nominee for chairman. And the Trump administration needs to nominate a new CNO. If America wants to get shipbuilding caught up, then it needs its leaders in place across the board.
The near-term question is whether Australia will stick with the deal, a major topic of debate in that country right now. It’s important to remember that American subs, while expensive, are still much cheaper than Australia building its own capability from scratch. And some of the U.S. technologies can’t be replicated from elsewhere. For instance, it would be extremely hard for Australia to get nuclear propulsion from another ally. So this is still America’s partnership to lose.