If future sovereignty stressing Australian Virginias were not deployed in line with US national interests (such as assisting the US Navy in defence of Taiwan) the US could assign Australian Virginias a low maintenance priority. This is in the context of the current dire maintenance situation impacting USN attack submarines (SSNs) including Virginias.
The well informed US Heritage
Foundation, March 24, 2023, reports:
Title: [US] "Navy Dry
Dock Closure Make a Bad Problem Worse"
"KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. This development will create massive problems for the [US] Navy’s submarines and aircraft carriers, the industrial base, and national defense as a whole.
2. Currently, 36% of the [US] Navy’s attack submarine fleet is either in - or waiting for - maintenance. With four dry docks offline, these numbers will likely get worse.
3. The sudden closure of [US] Navy assets in Puget Sound and Bangor [both in Washington State, USA] should awaken Congress and the White House to this overlooked, but very real naval crisis-in-the-making.
"...The seismic [geological fault line] assessment that led to the closures came as part of the [US]$21 billion [US] Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan (SIOP). SIOP began in 2018 as an attempt to address the increasingly poor conditions of the [US's] centuries-old shipyards."
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