The AUKUS Submarine Deal is Dead
National Security Journal, By Andrew Latham, 7 Aug 25
– Key Points and Summary – The central promise of the AUKUS security pact—to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines—is reportedly no longer viable due to a severe crisis in the U.S. and UK defense industrial bases.
-The U.S. Navy is struggling to build and maintain its own submarine fleet and cannot spare any Virginia-class boats, while the UK’s industry has no surplus capacity to make up the shortfall.
-This leaves Australia facing a dangerous capability gap.
-As a result, Canberra is now forced to upgrade its aging Collins-class submarines and fast-track its own domestic submarine production, a process that will take over a decade.
The AUKUS Submarine Deal Looks RIP
The central element of AUKUS was always the promise to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. According to the terms of the agreement, the US would provide Australia with at least three Virginia-class boats, and the UK and Australia would begin development on their own SSN-AUKUS platform. This plan is no longer viable.
The United States can’t provide the submarines; the United Kingdom can neither make up for the shortfall nor co-develop such a submarine in a reasonable timeframe; and Canberra must now face the unpleasant truth that the promises made in 2021 were more fantasy pledges than realistic commitments.
…………………..there was a tacit acknowledgement all along that a nuclear submarine program was more than a propulsion system—it was an entire industrial ecosystem. It needs an industrial base, a trained workforce, a secure supply chain, and, most critically, decades of institutional memory. AUKUS made the assumption that the United States could build Virginia-class submarines for itself and its AUKUS partners. That is no longer a reasonable assumption.
The US Navy is two boats short of its target force, it’s fielding a rate of barely 1.2 boats a year (far short of a two-per-year benchmark), and it has a chronic maintenance backlog that leaves a third of its force in port. It is unable to uprate its skilled labor pool, reactor modules, or dry dock capacity, and there is no margin in the shipyards even with billions in new money being injected into the program. Canberra had pledged US$2bn by the end of 2025 to help build up US industrial capacity. The yards at Groton and Newport News have no space to spare even for that investment. The bottleneck is a systemic one.
Admiral Daryl Caudle was frank in testimony last month. The US industrial base, he testified, would have to double its attack submarine output for America to meet its obligations under the AUKUS agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom. In April, the Pentagon initiated a 30-day review to see if it could simultaneously meet the needs of the US Navy and the Australian demand. Four months later, the review is still not public, but the answer is already clear: the US cannot do both. It cannot, even if it wanted to, turn over one or two boats to Australia, because the Navy has none to spare. Even if it did, the optics of transferring high-end submarines to another country while its own force contracts would be impossible for Congress to accept.
And the UK simply cannot provide subs in place of the promised but undeliverable American boats. The Royal Navy has already made an in-principle commitment to the SSN-AUKUS program. Still, Britain’s existing submarine program, which produces the Astute-class submarine, has suffered from years of delays, budget overruns, and production shortfalls since it was first launched. And BAE Systems, the prime contractor in the British submarine industry, has minimal spare capacity to increase the rate of production beyond its existing domestic orders. In short, there are no surplus subs—and, more importantly, no realistic possibility of any near-term export of nuclear-powered boats to Australia before the 2040s. Political will aside, industrial capacity isn’t there. The UK cannot bail out the US shortfall, and the AUKUS partnership as a viable trilateral supply chain has effectively ceased to exist. That, in turn, leaves Australia with no option but to fast-track its submarine industrial base; a process which it is already doing, quietly but steadily.
Canberra is already responding. The Collins-class submarines, at more than 20 years old, are being upgraded and their lifespan extended………………………. Australia will not be launching a domestically built nuclear submarine before the late 2030s. That is a decade away. The capability gap is real, and the risk profile is increasing.
The idea that the US could transfer a Virginia-class boat or two to make good the gap was floated early on. The politics have since moved against it. Congress is increasingly dubious about hardware transfers when the state of American readiness is already so poor. The Navy itself is against anything that would take boats from its already underpowered undersea fleet. The situation is not in flux: it is set. Washington cannot deliver what it promised. The internal Pentagon review, which has already been provided to Congress, reportedly makes that clear. The language might be diplomatic; the reality is not…………………………………………………… https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/the-aukus-submarine-deal-is-dead/
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