16 or more Columbias due to Russian AND rising China Threats

Thanks Anonymous for your 5/10/2026 11:33 AM comment. 

All of Australia's real or imagined SSN allies (US, UK and France) are fully committed with current SSN construction (ie. ongoing US Virginias soon to reduce construction rate from 1.1 to 0.8 standard Virginias from 2028. UK - final Astute(s) UK Navy only, then straight to 15-20 years of Dreadnought SSBN production. France - final Suffrens for the French Navy only, then 20 years of SNLE-3G/newly named L'Invincible class SSBN production. All this prevents any spare SSN construction capacity for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) unless South Korea's formidable SSN production potential saves Australia. 

France is also building/planning 3-5 non-Suffren, non-SSBN designs namely 4 x Orkas for the Netherlands, 1 x Brazilian Álvaro Alberto SSN, and perhaps 2 classes of small Scorpenes for Indonesia and the Philippines.  

Exacerbating this production capacity shortfall are that all 3 allies are fully committed to constructing next generation SSBNs.

-  For the US that will be 12 scheduled Columbias to construct until ~ 2043. In addition the US may well build 4 or more additional Columbias to achieve parity with an enlarged combination of new high quality threats (SSBNs and SSNs) from Russia and now also China. The China threat was not fully considered when the US was settling on Columbia production numbers in the 2010s. 

So potential threats to the US include:

    =   12 x Russian Borei SSBNs already built/building and 12 x Yasen SSNs built/building/planned

    =   China has not yet revealed its plans in nuclear submarine quality and quantity. However to build a global blue water nuclear submarine force China may want qualitive and quantitative parity with Russia and must also consider 4 to 6 x future Indian S5 SSBNs and up to 6 x Indian Project 77 SSNs as threats. 

     =   China has the shipbuilding capacity to design and high rate build 12+ x Type 096 SSBNs each with at least 16 x JL-3 or JL-4 SLBMs and 12+ x Type 095 SSNs.

I'll write further on nuclear submarine considerations of the UK, France and Australia around May 19, 2026.