Why the U.S. Will Stay Dominant in Undersea Warfare

It is true, of course, that both Russia and China are making progress towards quieter submarine operations. But do we believe that the United States is sitting on its hands and making no technological advances? Of course not. The US Navy continues to invest huge amounts in ensuring that its submarines remain at the absolute forefront of hard-to-detect operations under the world’s oceans. 

So, when we take delivery of our three Virginia–class SSNs from the US, we can be confident that they will be both highly effective and difficult to counter. This is why China is so angry about the prospect of our acquiring them. China already has a bad case of SLOC anxiety (worrying about its sea lines of communication). It fears loss of critical supplies, such as oil, that come through the confined waters of Southeast Asia.  

Things will only get worse for China when Australian SSNs enter service and when, under AUKUS, the US operates its own SSNs out of Fremantle. Further, if our Virginias are equipped with current long-range anti-ship missiles with a range of more than 2000km, they will be formidable strike weapons able to attack deep into our region. For example, 2000km is about the distance from east of the Philippines to the Yellow Sea between South Korea and China.  

Geography makes Chinese and Russian submarines relatively vulnerable when leaving base. In China’s case, the Northern Fleet is bottled up in the Yellow Sea. The sea is intensely surveilled by South Korea (which is just 400km from one Northern Fleet base, Weihai) and by Japan (which is 800km from the main base, Qingdao). Both are US allies.

Beijing’s main SSBN base is on Hainan, an island in the south of China from which submarines must move through relatively shallow waters until they reach deeper sea closer to the Philippines and Taiwan. And, to get to the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean, they must then pass through a chain of US SOSUS seabed sonar arrays that extends from South Korea and Japan to Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia. 

The United States, by contrast, has submarine bases on its east and west coasts that provide prompt access to secure deep waters in the open Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It has no potential adversaries nearby. Similarly, submarines leaving such Australian ports as Sydney and Fremantle also have quick access to secure deep oceanic waters. 

It is important to remember that keeping a capability edge in pro- submarine and anti-submarine warfare is vital for US security. This is especially true with respect to nuclear capabilities, the stability of the nuclear balance and the survivability of US SSBNs. That is why the US continues to invest heavily in such matters as submarine signature management (including radiated acoustic signatures), sensor performance and upgrades of the Mark 48 torpedo (including through joint research with Australia). 

Against this background, we reject the belief of those who say that US submarines have had their day. The United States has the world’s largest and most potent nuclear-powered submarine fleet and intends to keep it that way. No wonder that China is so worried about the prospect of Australia acquiring such a vastly superior capability.  

Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith are both former Australia’s deputy secretaries of defence. Dibb was also director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation, and Brabin-Smith was also chief defence scientist. This article, which is an edited version of an article that first appeared in The Weekend Australian, ispublished courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).