As Australia’s Aukus spending blows out further, US submarine building falls years further behind: the strongest signal yet that America’s promised Virginia-class submarines are increasingly unlikely to ever materialise under Australian command. This week the US navy admitted it would take until 2032 before it was building two Virginia-class boats a year – still below the rate needed to supply Australia. Australia’s budget, released Tuesday, put an extra $400m towards the Aukus agreement over the next three years: the Australian Submarine Agency’s total resourcing is now $2.13bn to the middle of 2029. In addition, Australia has sent A$2.76bn (US$2bn) to the US, and A$863m (£469m) to the UK, to boost their flagging submarine-building industrial bases. It remains a fraction of the total: to 2055, the Aukus deal is conservatively estimated to cost Australia $368bn. But the US Congress and navy, on which Australia will depend for its first nuclear-powered submarines – two second-hand Virginia-class attack submarines – continues to signal that it is not building enough submarines for its own fleet, let alone any to sell to Australia. Submarine building in the US has slowed dramatically over decades. It now takes US boatbuilders 10 years to build an attack submarine. Twenty years ago, it was taking them six. For the past 15 years, the US navy has ordered Virginia-class submarines at a rate of two a year, but its shipyards have never met that build rate “and since 2022 has been limited to about 1.1 to 1.2 boats per year, resulting in a growing backlog of boats procured but not yet built”, the Congressional Research service says. As a result, the US Navy has only 49 of the 66 submarines it needs. Shipyards must build Virginia-class submarines at a rate of two a year to meet the US’s own needs, and lift that to 2.33 boats a year to be able to supply submarines to Australia. The navy initially forecast that it would reach that build rate – two Virginia-class boats a year – by 2026. Navy officials then forecast that date at 2028. Now it has been pushed further again: to 2032. Giving evidence before the House Appropriations Committee defense subcommittee this week, the chief of naval operations, Admiral Daryl Caudle, said: “I would say we’re going to be up on step with that [production rate] around 2032 based on the things we’ve done ... we should be up to two-per-year in the early 2030s.” Caudle gave evidence he believed Aukus was progressing apace. “I just got back from Perth, they’re making their milestones. There’s a couple things they’re behind on, I’m frustrated with, that are part of the support system there ... But all the production work there on the pier ... they’re making their marks. “The integration of their sailors and officers and maintenance personnel at Pearl Harbor naval shipyard is fantastic. This is working and we want to support them and it is going to turn out really great when we get it delivered.” But even if US boat-builders reached a production rate of two Virginia-class submarines a year, it would still be insufficient to contribute to Aukus – short of the 2.33 boats a year required to have sufficient submarines to sell even one to Australia. The US legislation governing Aukus states that the president of the US can only transfer a submarine to Australia if losing that submarine from US service “will not degrade the United States undersea capabilities”. There is further evidence of the structural challenges facing US shipbuilding, emerging from Washington, and from yards across the country. The US Navy’s shipbuilding plan – a detailed 30-year roadmap of all of the navy’s planned vessels, released this month – does not account for building any additional submarines for Aukus. The entire document mentions Aukus only once, as a footnote, saying it has been excluded from the navy’s projections. A report issued last month – Challenges Facing the Navy’s and Coast Guard’s Shipbuilding Programs and the Shipbuilding Industrial Base – paints a dire picture of an industry that has consistently failed to meet targets. “The Navy and the shipbuilding industrial base have had the resources, but have been unable to deliver the ships that the service has ordered in a timely manner.” In the 2000s, it took US boat-builders six years to build and deliver an attack submarine the report said. In the 2020s, it takes 10 years. Workforce challenges were the greatest brake on production rates. “Nearly all the major shipyards are having difficulty hiring and retaining workers, and a generation of longtime shipyard workers has retired or soon will. As a result, the workforces in many of those yards are, overall, less experienced than they were in the past.” As well, up to 70% of suppliers of parts have no competitors, so “a single supplier of a critical component could disrupt ship construction if it encountered difficulties in production”. The US Congressional Research Service has openly countenanced “alternative divisions of labour” under which no Virginia-class submarines are ever transferred to Australian control. The research service’s latest report on Aukus, issued in January, considered a revision under which the submarines earmarked for sale to Australia are instead retained under US command to be sailed out of Australian bases. The report argued both for and against the US selling three Virginia-class submarines to Australia, beginning in 2032. But it makes the case that, in the event of a “conflict or crisis” with China over Taiwan, submarines under Australian command could not be ordered into operation, whereas US-commanded vessels, operated out of Australian bases, could be immediately deployed. Acting secretary of the navy, Hung Cao, appearing before the same house subcommittee as Admiral Caudle this week, gave an insight into the US perspective. He said he felt the submarines – under US or Australian command – were, essentially, interchangeable. “The enemy will not know if it’s an American submarine out there or an Australian submarine, because it’s going to all be the same... let them guess what’s out there.”