U.S. Senators Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt joined Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and 21 Senate and House colleagues in a letter to President Joe Biden calling on the president to take immediate action to strengthen the U.S. submarine industrial base. This is particularly important with the U.S. working to fulfill the terms of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) partnership.
In the letter, the legislators emphasized their support for the AUKUS deal and argued that the U.S. submarine industrial base would require major new investments and a comprehensive plan of action to meet the needs of both the United States and Australia.
“We urge you to send Congress immediately an AUKUS-specific request for appropriations and authorities alongside a multi-year plan to increase U.S. submarine production to a minimum of 2.5 Virginia-class attack submarines per year,” the Senator wrote in the letter. “It is time to make generational investments in U.S. submarine production capacity, including supplier and workforce development initiatives.”
“AUKUS has broad support because of its potential to improve the national security of all three countries,” the Senators wrote. “Implementing this deal will require a historic degree of cooperation and trust among the three countries, and here at home, between the executive and legislative branches of our government.”
“The U.S. Navy’s military requirement is 66 nuclear attack submarines,” the Senators wrote. “Today, there are only 49 in the fleet. Further, as older nuclear submarines retire faster than they are replaced, the Navy projects the inventory will decline to 46 by 2030. Under the current AUKUS plan to transfer U.S. Virginia-class submarines to a partner nation before meeting the Navy’s own requirements, the number of available nuclear submarines in the U.S. submarine fleet would be lowered further. This is a risk we should not take.”
The full letter to President Biden is here.
“The United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom formed a pact in 2021 to boost the three nations’ collective deterrence in the Indo-Pacific,” Sen. Wicker wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal. “That Aukus agreement is vital, but there is more work to do: The U.S. should double its submarine production.”
“Under the first pillar of the Aukus agreement, the U.S. would sell our attack submarines to Australia,” Wicker continued. “In exchange, Australia would expand basing for U.S. submarines. In the second pillar, all three nations would share advanced technology.”
“Attack submarines are among our most effective weapons and the crown jewels of U.S. military power,” Wicker continued. “Undersea warfare is one of the few areas in which we retain a competitive advantage over the Chinese military.”
“Worse still, demands on our submarine maintenance capabilities have also stretched our military’s readiness,” Wicker wrote. “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.”
U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro recently told reporters that the U.S. cannot compete with China’s ability to build warships. They have more shipyards and are building ships at a faster pace than American shipyards are capable of building ships. Del Toro said that the Chinese Navy is the largest in the world, with 340 ships, and could be fielding up to 400 ships in the coming years. The U.S. meanwhile has fewer than 300 ships and is struggling to maintain the readiness of that fleet. According to the U.S. Navy’s Navigation Plan 2022, released last summer, the Pentagon’s goal is to have 350 manned ships by 2045, but it is unclear if that target will or can be met.
“They have 13 shipyards; in some cases, their shipyard has more capacity – one shipyard has more capacity than all of our shipyards combined. That presents a real threat,” Del Toro said.
Tommy Tuberville was elected to the Senate in 2020, while Katie Britt was elected to the Senate in 2022.
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