Indo-Pacific our priority theatre, says US Navy boss Tom Mancinelli

The US Acting Under-Secretary of the Navy says the US is ‘here to stay’ and that Australia will retain full sovereignty over future Virginia-class submarines.

The Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Hawaii prepares to moor at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. Picture: US Navy

The US Acting Under-Secretary of the Navy, Tom Mancinelli, has said the Indo-Pacific is America’s “priority theatre” and that the US is “here to stay”.

On a trip to Western Australia in support of the AUKUS security partnership, Mr Mancinelli told The Australian that US national defence strategy had assessed the People’s Republic of China as being its long-term “pacing challenge” and the US Navy was “laser focused” on the Pacific region.

The comments come after Foreign Minister Penny Wong used a speech to say Australia was “deeply concerned” by the pace at which China’s military was modernising “without the transparency or reassurance that the region expects”.

“We see growing military co-operation between China and Russia, and China’s efforts to normalise dangerous actions towards The Philippines and Taiwan. Behaviour speaks louder than words,” Senator Wong said.

Thomas Mancinelli, right, with Australian Navy personnel. Picture: US Embassy

She said Australia had, at every step in its military acquisitions, engaged with regional partners openly and transparently.

Mr Mancinelli told The Australian that the US would “benefit tremendously” from the AUKUS security partnership, including “what it means for American force posture, for what it means for our own defence industrial base”.

He said maintenance work being conducted at HMAS Stirling near Perth on the USS Hawaii – a Virginia-class submarine – was the “hallmark event of AUKUS for 2024”. America was looking towards achieving a “steady drumbeat of US sailors and attack submarines coming here to HMAS Stirling,” he said.

“I believe the goal we set for ourselves is two per year, beginning in 2025, to make sure that the sailors of the Australian navy team here at HMAS Stirling are improving their skills and know-how to the point where the Submarine Rotational Force-West is a reality by the end of 2027.”

SRF-West is aimed at accommodating a rotational presence at HMAS Stirling from 2027 of one British and up to four US nuclear-powered submarines and – beyond that – Australia’s own future fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Mr Mancinelli, who met with Anthony Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Australian Submarine Agency director-general Vice-Admiral Jonathan Mead on his visit to WA, was confident the US could boost the production rate of Virginia-class submarines to 2.33 boats a year.

This is the production benchmark needed for the US to maintain its own submarine capability while also compensating for the three to five vessels that are to be sold to Australia under the AUKUS agreement.

“Production isn’t where it needs to be right now,” he said. “But we are working aggressively with our partners in industry and with the support of the US congress to improve that production,” Mr Mancinelli said.

“We have a tremendous amount of investment that’s going into our submarine industrial base … we know that we need to do more to get our industry on track, but I’m confident that we have a plan in place.”

He also provided an assurance that Australia would retain sovereignty over the submarines it received from the US and the goal was to reach a point where the submarines would be “totally, manned by Australia”.