UNDERSEA WARFAREWhy the U.S. Will Stay Dominant in Undersea Warfare
The United States has been so far ahead in submarine technology and secure underwater operations over the past 50-plus years that its submarines are virtually undetectable by either China or Russia.
A number of commentators in Australia have lately made rash pronouncements about the demise of US submarines, alleging that innovative technologies will make the vessels vulnerable. Others have been arguing that US nuclear-powered submarines are now noisier than their Chinese counterparts and will be easily detectable by China.
The fact is that the United States has been so far ahead in submarine technology and secure underwater operations over the past 50-plus years that its submarines are virtually undetectable by either China or Russia. In the Cold War, US attack submarines (SSNs) tailed Soviet ballistic–missile firing submarines (SSBNs) at close quarters without being detected. There is every reason to believe that the same applies these days to China’s SSBNs. It is our view that China’s SSBNs are so easily tracked by US SSNs that China’s allegedly survivable second-strike nuclear capability is at high risk (as was that of the USSR in the Cold War). In brief, the quietness of US submarines and the sophistication of their operations are legendary.
The reason for this is that for more than half a century the United States has persistently poured vast amounts of research and development into superior underwater warfare technology. Naturally, these capabilities are among the United States’ most highly guarded secrets, so little information about them is in the public domain. However, we recommend two books: Blind Man’s Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (1998) and The Silent Deep: The Royal Navy Submarine Service since 1945 by Peter Hennessy and James Jinks (2016). The former is about highly classified US submarine operations involving the CIA tapping into the USSR’s seabed communications in the sea of Okhotsk for the Soviet Pacific submarine fleet in Kamchatka. US submarines made repeated visits and were not detected. The Silent Deep covers close–quarter submarine operations against Soviet SSBNs and SSNs by British nuclear submarines, whose reputation is similar to US submarines’. To our knowledge, there is no equivalent book available about operations against China’s submarines yet (but the subject is touched on by Michael McDevitt’s China as a Twenty First Century Naval Power, 2020).
Those who talk about superior Chinese submarine operations being able easily to detect US submarines do not know what they are talking about. The fact is that until recently China has depended very much on Russian technology for its SSBNs and SSNs. That includes even such relatively straightforward techniques as isolating the noise of engines and other machinery from the hull. We need to remember that in the Cold War Soviet ballistic–missile firing submarines were known as boomers because their loud noises were detectable over very considerable distances. As for China dealing with US submarines, the Pentagon stated in 2023 that China ‘continues to lack a robust deep-water anti-submarine warfare capability.’
