The nuclear-powered submarines Australia wants will likely include U.S.-built nuclear reactors and be preceded by a joint U.S.-Australian command of a Virginia-class attack submarine, a member of the House Armed Services Committee said in a recent virtual event.
“I think the way to do that is to just say that BWXT will produce those reactors, they’ll be shipped to Australia and their ship builders will install them in those submarines,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), ranking member of the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee, said during a virtual Wilson Center event on Oct. 7.
Wittman said Australia might eventually change its policy and produce its own nuclear reactors. BWXT has a virtual monopoly on the U.S. naval reactors business.
Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. announced the AUKUS partnership over a year ago to help Australia procure a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarines to replace Canberra’s fleet of six conventional diesel-electric Collins-class submarines. The new boats would be nuclear powered but carry conventional weapons. Australia does not have nuclear weapons.
The AUKUS parties gave themselves 18 months from then, until May 2023, to work out the particulars of what they are calling a technology transfer. Nations unfriendly to the U.S. have said the deal runs fundamentally afoul of international nonproliferation agreements.
Wittman prefers that Australia assemble its own attack submarines rather than asking the U.S. to do the job, he said.
The U.S. is currently building about 1.4 to 1.5 submarines per year “at best, and that’s because we’re coming out of COVID,” said Wittman, who wants the Navy to be able to procure two to three boats annually to more quickly get the Navy the 54 attack submarines it wants.
With that level of throughput, the U.S. could do a joint deployment agreement with Australia to use one of the U.S. boats, with Australian submariners, in the Australian area of operations. That Virginia-class attack submarine would be jointly operated by the Royal Australian Navy and U.S. Navy.
“So we have an Australian crew on board. We have joint commanders on board, Australian and U.S., and we have the U.S. and Australia jointly command that submarine…and that way it’s still a U.S. asset while they are building capability to build their own submarine,” Wittman said. “And that way they can have the coverage that they will need as the Collins-class submarines age out and as they’re waiting for their first Australian submarine to be built.”
A version of this story first appeared in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing affiliate publication Defense Daily.
