Major US CRS Report: No Virginias for Australia?

Andrew Tillett, for the Australian Financial Review (AFR) has written an excellent article AUKUS subs deal ‘could worsen US shortfall, blunt China deterrence of August 21, 2023. The AFR article is marked “Exclusive” see "Comments" below this SubMatts article. 

The AFR article is heavily based on Congressional Research Service report Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress of August 15, 2023, numbered RL32418, which raises such major issues as: 

Page 49 “…A November 17, 2022, press report stated (emphasis added) The U.S. Navy has nearly twice as many submarines sidelined for maintenance than it should, and those boats in maintenance ultimately require three times more unplanned work than they should, the program executive officer for attacks subs has said. [Page 50] Of the 50 attack subs, Rucker said 18 are in maintenance or waiting for their turn. Industry best practice would call for just 20% to be tied up in repairs, or 10 boats instead of 18.”

Page 50 “…This drive to zero delay days comes in the context of an undersized attack submarine force that’s kept busy. Navy and Pentagon leadership repeatedly call the submarine force among America’s top advantages over adversaries like China and Russia; yet the U.S. has 50 attack submarines and four related “large payload submarines,” compared to a requirement for a combined 66 to 72 attack [SSNs] and large payload subs [were called "SSGNs"].

Page 17  Selling three Virginia-class boats to Australia by FY2035, and not replacing them through the construction of additional Virginia-class boats by FY2035, would reduce the projected number of SSNs in FY2035 to 47 boats, which would increase the percentage in the number of [Page 18] to about 29%.”

Page 18 continues “,,,A potential alternative to the proposed sale of Virginia-class SSNs to Australia would be a U.S.- Australian military division of labor under which U.S. SSNs would perform both U.S. and Australian SSN missions while Australia invested in military forces for performing other military missions for both Australia and the United States.”

Page 21 “…What would be the impact of a three- to five-boat reduction [for transfer to Australia] in the size of the U.S. SSN force on the ability of the U.S. SSN force to perform day-to-day and wartime SSN missions of interest to the United States, particularly in the context of the Navy’s 66-boat SSN force-level goal…?

Page 22 “…Regarding the net impact on deterrence and warfighting capability of transferring three to five Virginia-class SSNs to Australia rather than keeping them in U.S. Navy service, supporters of transferring them might argue that the deterrent value of introducing SSNs to Australia’s navy would be greater than the deterrent value of keeping those SSNs in U.S. Navy service because a newly created force of Australian SSNs would present China with a second allied decisionmaking center (along with the United States) for SSN operations in the Indo-Pacific, which would enhance deterrence of potential Chinese aggression by complicating Chinese military planning…. 

Page 22 continues "...Skeptics of transferring Virginia-class SSNs from the United States to Australia might argue that it could weaken deterrence of potential Chinese aggression if China were to find reason to believe, correctly or not, that Australia might use the transferred Virginia-class boats less effectively than the U.S. Navy would use them if the boats were retained in U.S. Navy service, or that Australia might not involve its military, including its Virginia-class boats, in U.S.-China crises or conflicts that Australia viewed as not engaging important Australian interests…” [See my August 18, 2023 article on this].

Page 23 “…Skeptics could argue that notwithstanding Australia’s capability for, and commitment to, protecting U.S. submarine and U.S. naval nuclear propulsion technology, sharing this [Page 24] technology with another country would increase the number of potential entry points that China, Russia, or some other country could attempt to penetrate to gain access to that technology."

Pete Comment: I support the skeptics' arguments. How about you?