Congress Is Already Preparing to Kill the Australia Submarine Sale

The U.S. builds about 1.2 Virginia-class submarines per year. It needs to build 2.33 per year to meet its own requirements and sell boats to Australia. That gap isn't closing.

A new Congressional Research Service report, released on January 26, lays out what anyone tracking American shipyard capacity already suspected: Washington is quietly gaming out scenarios where Australia gets zero Virginia-class submarines. Not three. Not five. Zero.

The CRS paper, authored by Ronald O'Rourke — who has been analyzing naval affairs for Congress for over four decades — presents what it calls an alternative "military division of labour." Under this arrangement, the submarines earmarked for Australia would instead remain under U.S. Navy command, operating out of Australian ports. Australia would take the money it saved and buy something else: long-range missiles, drones, maybe B-21 bombers.

The Numbers Don't Lie

The U.S. Navy currently has 49 attack submarines against a force-level goal of 66. That's a 17-boat gap. American shipyards have been ordered to deliver two Virginia-class boats per year for the past fifteen years. They've never hit that target. Since 2022, output has hovered around 1.1 to 1.2 boats annually, creating what the CRS calls "a growing backlog of boats procured but not yet built."

To meet American needs alone, the yards need to double their output. To meet AUKUS commitments — three to five boats for Australia by the early 2030s — they'd need to more than double it. The first Australian Virginia is supposed to arrive in 2032. Anyone who's served in naval procurement knows what that schedule really means: 2035 at the earliest, if it happens at all.

The Taiwan Question

The CRS report doesn't just cite industrial constraints. It cites something more politically explosive: Australia's refusal to commit to supporting the United States in a Taiwan conflict.

The report quotes statements from Defense Minister Richard Marles and the Chief of Navy indicating that Canberra would make "no promises" about joining America in a war with China. That's a significant piece of analysis to put in a congressional document.

Here's the logic: if Australia won't commit to fight alongside the U.S. in the one scenario where attack submarines matter most — a Chinese move on Taiwan — then why sell them boats that could otherwise be used in that fight?

"Selling three to five Virginia-class SSNs to Australia would thus convert those SSNs from boats that would be available for use in a US-China crisis or conflict into boats that might not be available," the report states. "This could weaken rather than strengthen deterrence."

The Legal Barrier

U.S. law already makes the sale conditional. The AUKUS Submarine Transfer Authorization Act requires the president to certify that any submarine sold to Australia "will not degrade the United States undersea capabilities." With the fleet at 49 boats and the industrial base unable to close the gap, that certification is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.

The CRS report also raises cybersecurity concerns about sharing nuclear submarine technology with Australia, noting that Chinese hackers are "highly active" in targeting Australian government and contractor systems. Expanding the "attack surface" for that technology carries real risk.

What Canberra Is Paying For

Australia has already paid A$1.4 billion toward AUKUS submarines and is about to pay another billion. The total program cost through the mid-2050s is projected at A$368 billion. For that money, Australia expects first a fleet of American-built Virginias, then eight Australian-built SSN-AUKUS boats based on a British design, with the first in the water "in the early 2040s" and the last launched in the 2060s.

That's a forty-year timeline. The CRS report is essentially asking: does it make sense to wait that long when American boats could operate from Australian bases under American command right now?

The Signal Washington Is Sending

Defense Minister Marles says he's working with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and that AUKUS is going "full steam ahead." Maybe it is in Canberra. In Washington, the Congressional Research Service is producing detailed analysis of alternatives where Australia gets nothing.

That's not a staff paper someone wrote for fun. CRS reports inform legislation. They shape how members of Congress think about defense commitments. When a senior naval analyst with four decades of experience lays out the math showing the submarine sale might not happen, that's a signal — not a glitch.

The deal isn't dead. But Congress is already writing its obituary.