US ‘aspirational’ on timing of AUKUS submarines

US chief of naval operations says the US is ‘gaining momentum’ on moves to ensure Australia can acquire nuclear powered submarines.

US President Joe Biden (C), British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (R) and Anthony Albanese (L) hold a press conference during the AUKUS summit in March. Picture; AFP.

The US navy is “aspirational” about meeting the submarine production targets required to ensure Australia will be able to purchase up to five nuclear-powered Virginia class submarines as promised under the AUKUS security pact.

Admiral Michael Gilday told a seminar in Washington on Monday (Tuesday (AEST)) that it was “too early” to say “precisely where those submarines will come from . whether [from] excess capacity or whether that comes out of US inventory”.

Bottlenecks in US submarine yards have limited the production of US Virginia class submarines to around 1.2 a year in recent years compared with the minimum of two per year required to fulfil the US navy’s own force projection requirements.

“We’re aspirational at this point with respect to reaching the goal of two SSNs a year but all the indicators we have right now is that we are gaining momentum,” Admiral Gilday, chief of US naval operations, said.

“I can‘t give you a specific date when we expect to close on two but we’re headed in the right direction”.

Speaking in March after the three AUKUS leaders revealed greater detail about the landmark agreement first announced in September 2021, Admiral Gilday had said US production would need to “go above 2.0 attack boats a year if we’re going to be in a position to sell any to the Australians”.

Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, AM, RAN welcomes Chief of Naval Operations, United States Navy, Admiral Michael Gilday at Russell Offices in Canberra.

Kurt Campbell, Joe Biden’s top adviser for Indo-Pacific matters, said production wasn’t the only problem hobbling the US navy’s own requirements but also the “troublingly large number of submarines that are in dry dock [and needing to get] those back into the water and deployed more quickly”.

Dr Campbell, one of the US officials closest to the negotiation of AUKUS — a wide ranging defence pact that nullified an earlier agreement with France to build 12 diesel powered submarines, said submarines ultimately sold to Australia were not “lost” to the US.

“It sounds like they‘re lost [but] they will be deployed by the closest possible allied force,” he said, speaking alongside Admiral Gilday at a Centre for Strategic and International Studies event.

In March the government said the navy would purchase up to five Virginia class submarines in the early 2030s to replace the ageing Collins Class fleet, ahead of a building a whole new class of attack submarine in the 2040s, dubbed SS AUKUS, in Australian shipyards using US and UK nuclear technology.

The entire submarine program would cost somewhere between $268 billion and $368 billion, it estimated.

Dr Campbell dismissed concerns the administration and congress might drag the chain in approving the regulatory changes required to enable transfer of US nuclear technology to Australia.

“This has been mandated by the President so this is not a ‘whether to’, it‘s a ‘how to’ and I just think sometimes that simple crystallised fact helps quite a lot,” he explained.

As part of AUKUS US submarines, increasingly crewed by Australian and US submariners, would conduct more port visits to Australia including being deployed out of HMAS Stirling near Perth.

The two senior officials also revealed the first Australian submariner students training at the Nuclear Power School in Charleston, South Carolina would graduate in a week’s time.

“All of them are above the mean and not just a couple of them,” Dr Campbell said.