The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is engaged in a breathtaking modernization and expansion effort. The PLA Navy (PLAN) now fields the largest surface fleet in the world, and the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) has a deep magazine of ballistic and air-breathing missiles designed to keep the United States Navy outside of the First Island Chain—the line of islands off the coast of Asia that runs from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines. These projects are part of an effort by Chinese Leader Xi Jinping to build a “world-class” military by 2050—a military that will enable him to coerce the United States and seize Taiwan by force, if he deems it necessary.
The United States, for its part, has struggled to keep up. A leaked 2023 assessment from the Office of Naval Intelligence estimated that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a shipbuilding capacity 232 times greater than that of the United States. Moreover, while PRC defense spending has increased consistently over the past thirty years, then-President Joe Biden’s request for U.S. defense spending for 2025 represents a decrease in fundingwhen adjusted for inflation. This reality confronts U.S. military planners with a dire challenge: how can Washington deter a PRC invasion of Taiwan in the face of such staggering defense-industrial disadvantages?
It would be neither economical nor wise to attempt to outcompete the PRC ship-for-ship. Rather than responding with reactive, reciprocal mimicry , the United States would be better served to offset this PRC advantage by playing to its own strengths. Washington has political and military advantages that, if properly leveraged, can force Beijing to compete for regional dominance on U.S. terms.
First, the United States has a robust and capable regional alliance system. Effective military, economic, and political cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and the Philippines can impose asymmetric costs on Beijing. The Australia-United Kingdom-United States defense partnership (AUKUS) is a prime example of how the United States can shape the regional balance of power while also deepening its own magazine of essential military capabilities.
Second, the United States has advantages in undersea warfare that will enable it to outweigh PLA attempts to gain advantages with untested technologies such as laser propulsion. The United States has operated a nuclear-powered submarine force for more than 70 years and has a long, established organizational competence with these platforms. The U.S. Navy, moreover, boasts a fleet comprised of exclusively nuclear-powered submarines, compared to the PLAN’s 20% nuclear fleet (twelve nuclear and 48 diesel powered submarines). This enduring asymmetry enables the U.S. Navy to refine its nuclear submarine operations on an ongoing basis, something the PLAN cannot do on the same scale. Furthermore, the PLAN has struggled to develop submarines as stealthy as their American and Russian counterparts, although the U.S. advantage in stealth technology may be slipping. Nuclear-powered attack submarines can operate for extended periods far away from their home bases, and they are invulnerable to land-based fires. Diesel-electric submarines, by contrast, have limited ranges and tend to be far noisier than their nuclear-powered counterparts, although the most modern diesel-electrics rival nuclear submarines for stealth.
Building Conditions for Success
Effectively countering the PRC’s growing military arsenal will require defense investments that play to U.S. strengths. Submarines can enable the U.S. military to impose substantial costs on the PLAN by constraining its ability to operate in the Indo-Pacific and by striking deep within the First Island Chain.
Fortunately for Washington, it has a substantial advantage over the PRC in submarine technology. As of 2022, the PLAN’s fleet of attack submarines consisted of 47 diesel attack submarines and only six nuclear-powered boats. By contrast, all of the U.S. Navy’s attack submarines are nuclear-powered. Moreover, while U.S. submarines are stealthy, their PLAN counterparts generate larger noise signatures and are, therefore, easier to track. Stealth is a critical source of advantage in the Indo-Pacific theater because it can enable U.S. forces to penetrate the PLA’s anti-access/area denial envelope unseen and therefore.
However, the existing U.S. submarine force is insufficient for future warfighting requirements. No matter how stealthy and lethal a submarine is, each boat can still only ever be in one place at once. Simply, as the PLAN expands, the U.S. will need more submarines to keep pace. Furthermore, the U.S. Navy will—by the mid 2030s—be required to deploynuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles on some of its attack submarines, so it will need more boats to ensure that it can manage the demands of the conventional warfighting mission and the nuclear mission simultaneously.
At present, the United States can only build one Virginia-class attack submarine per year because of its atrophied defense industrial base. Simply increasing spending on submarine procurement, therefore, will not be enough to fix the problem. The Department of Defense must send a clear and large demand signal to the shipbuilding industry and generate economies of scale that drive down per-unit costs and expand its engagement with the private sector. A prime example is the Navy’s over $500 million investment in the Blue Forge Alliance, a non-profit that supports the submarine industrial base through building supply chain resiliency, workforce recruitment, and technical skills training.
Washington can leverage AUKUS to deepen investments that will establish a reliable allied industrial base. Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News Shipbuilding, for example, announced in 2024 that the Australian steel producer Bisalloy will process steel for AUKUS submarines’ pressure hulls. Bisalloy is receiving its qualification, scheduled for completion by June 2025 at the latest. This represents a significant increase in the overall capacity of the maritime industrial base. The United States should look for similar opportunities to leverage allied industry for critical components.
In the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract with Babcock International in 2023 to help design the SSN-AUKUS, the nuclear-powered submarines to be jointly developed by the UK and Australia. The AUKUS-class submarines are scheduled to replace the UK’s Astute-class submarines in the 2030s and enter Australian service in the 2040s. Babcock International and Huntington Ingalls also launched H&B Defense, a joint venture aimed at workforce and infrastructure development, such as at Australia’s IAEA-compliant nuclear facilities. These investments strengthen the allied industrial base and, in the words of then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy Eric Chewning, “are the start of a much larger undertaking.”
These initiatives can provide much needed funding to the American submarine industrial base, on top of the $3 billion Australia has committed to investing in the U.S. submarine industry. However, collaborative efforts should not stop there. Expanding upon this model can help address other weaknesses in the submarine supply chain and strengthen allied force posture in the Indo-Pacific.
Moving Forward with AUKUS
Washington, London, and Canberra should explore the potential to collaboratively address the submarine industrial base workforce shortage.. The U.S. Navy has already begun training Australian submariners on American nuclear-powered attack submarines. This initiative aims to help prepare the Royal Australian Navy to operate Virginia-class submarines it will soon purchase from the United States. A similar approach at the industrial level could ensure that the AUKUS countries’ respective workforces can build and maintain the future allied submarine force.
The United States should also develop a comprehensive interagency strategy to expedite AUKUS implementation. This strategy should endeavor to deconflict competing regulations among the Departments of Defense, State, Commerce, and Energy. While State and Commerce proposed new rules to streamline the transfer of some defense articles under AUKUS in April 2024, they did not adequately address many of the underlying, complicating requirements imposed by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The United States needs to develop a strategic approach to overcoming these obstacles.
Finally, the AUKUS partners should explore the possibility of fielding additional common military capabilities across their three militaries. As previously mentioned, the future AUKUS-class submarines will serve both the British and Australian navies. This co-acquisition model can create broader economies of scale, driving down per-boat costs. While fielding a common submarine among the three navies may be too great a leap for the United States, utilizing common components or weapons systems could likewise drive down costs and create useful supply chain redundancies.
An Allied Force for the Future
In an early February meeting with his Australian counterpart, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth voiced his support for AUKUS and underscored its importance for U.S. defense objectives in the Indo-Pacific. This is a welcome sign from the new administration, but more can be done.
The United States cannot cede the initiative to Beijing in this military competition; Washington must leverage AUKUSas a model to proactively shape the regional balance of power in America’s favor. As Secretary Hegseth noted, “this is not a mission, in the Indo-Pacific, that America can undertake by itself.” By exploring new opportunities to expand AUKUS and strengthen existing collaboration under the agreement, the United States can play to its competitive advantages and regain the upper hand in the Indo-Pacific.
Eli Glickman is a senior at the University of California, Berkeley and an undergraduate research fellow at the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab.
Pieter van Wingerden is a recent graduate from Claremont McKenna College, where he was president of the campus’ Alexander Hamilton Society chapter.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
Center for Maritime Strategy
By Eli Glickman, Pieter van Wingerden
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is engaged in a breathtaking modernization and expansion effort. The PLA Navy (PLAN) now fields the largest surface fleet in the world, and the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) has a deep magazine of ballistic and air-breathing missiles designed to keep the United States Navy outside of the First Island Chain—the line of islands off the coast of Asia that runs from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines. These projects are part of an effort by Chinese Leader Xi Jinping to build a “world-class” military by 2050—a military that will enable him to coerce the United States and seize Taiwan by force, if he deems it necessary.
The United States, for its part, has struggled to keep up. A leaked 2023 assessment from the Office of Naval Intelligence estimated that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a shipbuilding capacity 232 times greater than that of the United States. Moreover, while PRC defense spending has increased consistently over the past thirty years, then-President Joe Biden’s request for U.S. defense spending for 2025 represents a decrease in funding when adjusted for inflation. This reality confronts U.S. military planners with a dire challenge: how can Washington deter a PRC invasion of Taiwan in the face of such staggering defense-industrial disadvantages?
It would be neither economical nor wise to attempt to outcompete the PRC ship-for-ship. Rather than responding with reactive, reciprocal mimicry , the United States would be better served to offset this PRC advantage by playing to its own strengths. Washington has political and military advantages that, if properly leveraged, can force Beijing to compete for regional dominance on U.S. terms.
First, the United States has a robust and capable regional alliance system. Effective military, economic, and political cooperation with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and the Philippines can impose asymmetric costs on Beijing. The Australia-United Kingdom-United States defense partnership (AUKUS) is a prime example of how the United States can shape the regional balance of power while also deepening its own magazine of essential military capabilities.
Second, the United States has advantages in undersea warfare that will enable it to outweigh PLA attempts to gain advantages with untested technologies such as laser propulsion. The United States has operated a nuclear-powered submarine force for more than 70 years and has a long, established organizational competence with these platforms. The U.S. Navy, moreover, boasts a fleet comprised of exclusively nuclear-powered submarines, compared to the PLAN’s 20% nuclear fleet (twelve nuclear and 48 diesel powered submarines). This enduring asymmetry enables the U.S. Navy to refine its nuclear submarine operations on an ongoing basis, something the PLAN cannot do on the same scale. Furthermore, the PLAN has struggled to develop submarines as stealthy as their American and Russian counterparts, although the U.S. advantage in stealth technology may be slipping. Nuclear-powered attack submarines can operate for extended periods far away from their home bases, and they are invulnerable to land-based fires. Diesel-electric submarines, by contrast, have limited ranges and tend to be far noisier than their nuclear-powered counterparts, although the most modern diesel-electrics rival nuclear submarines for stealth.
Building Conditions for Success
Effectively countering the PRC’s growing military arsenal will require defense investments that play to U.S. strengths. Submarines can enable the U.S. military to impose substantial costs on the PLAN by constraining its ability to operate in the Indo-Pacific and by striking deep within the First Island Chain.
Fortunately for Washington, it has a substantial advantage over the PRC in submarine technology. As of 2022, the PLAN’s fleet of attack submarines consisted of 47 diesel attack submarines and only six nuclear-powered boats. By contrast, all of the U.S. Navy’s attack submarines are nuclear-powered. Moreover, while U.S. submarines are stealthy, their PLAN counterparts generate larger noise signatures and are, therefore, easier to track. Stealth is a critical source of advantage in the Indo-Pacific theater because it can enable U.S. forces to penetrate the PLA’s anti-access/area denial envelope unseen and therefore.
However, the existing U.S. submarine force is insufficient for future warfighting requirements. No matter how stealthy and lethal a submarine is, each boat can still only ever be in one place at once. Simply, as the PLAN expands, the U.S. will need more submarines to keep pace. Furthermore, the U.S. Navy will—by the mid 2030s—be required to deploy nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles on some of its attack submarines, so it will need more boats to ensure that it can manage the demands of the conventional warfighting mission and the nuclear mission simultaneously.
At present, the United States can only build one Virginia-class attack submarine per year because of its atrophied defense industrial base. Simply increasing spending on submarine procurement, therefore, will not be enough to fix the problem. The Department of Defense must send a clear and large demand signal to the shipbuilding industry and generate economies of scale that drive down per-unit costs and expand its engagement with the private sector. A prime example is the Navy’s over $500 million investment in the Blue Forge Alliance, a non-profit that supports the submarine industrial base through building supply chain resiliency, workforce recruitment, and technical skills training.
Washington can leverage AUKUS to deepen investments that will establish a reliable allied industrial base. Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News Shipbuilding, for example, announced in 2024 that the Australian steel producer Bisalloy will process steel for AUKUS submarines’ pressure hulls. Bisalloy is receiving its qualification, scheduled for completion by June 2025 at the latest. This represents a significant increase in the overall capacity of the maritime industrial base. The United States should look for similar opportunities to leverage allied industry for critical components.
In the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract with Babcock International in 2023 to help design the SSN-AUKUS, the nuclear-powered submarines to be jointly developed by the UK and Australia. The AUKUS-class submarines are scheduled to replace the UK’s Astute-class submarines in the 2030s and enter Australian service in the 2040s. Babcock International and Huntington Ingalls also launched H&B Defense, a joint venture aimed at workforce and infrastructure development, such as at Australia’s IAEA-compliant nuclear facilities. These investments strengthen the allied industrial base and, in the words of then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy Eric Chewning, “are the start of a much larger undertaking.”
These initiatives can provide much needed funding to the American submarine industrial base, on top of the $3 billion Australia has committed to investing in the U.S. submarine industry. However, collaborative efforts should not stop there. Expanding upon this model can help address other weaknesses in the submarine supply chain and strengthen allied force posture in the Indo-Pacific.
Moving Forward with AUKUS
Washington, London, and Canberra should explore the potential to collaboratively address the submarine industrial base workforce shortage.. The U.S. Navy has already begun training Australian submariners on American nuclear-powered attack submarines. This initiative aims to help prepare the Royal Australian Navy to operate Virginia-class submarines it will soon purchase from the United States. A similar approach at the industrial level could ensure that the AUKUS countries’ respective workforces can build and maintain the future allied submarine force.
The United States should also develop a comprehensive interagency strategy to expedite AUKUS implementation. This strategy should endeavor to deconflict competing regulations among the Departments of Defense, State, Commerce, and Energy. While State and Commerce proposed new rules to streamline the transfer of some defense articles under AUKUS in April 2024, they did not adequately address many of the underlying, complicating requirements imposed by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The United States needs to develop a strategic approach to overcoming these obstacles.
Finally, the AUKUS partners should explore the possibility of fielding additional common military capabilities across their three militaries. As previously mentioned, the future AUKUS-class submarines will serve both the British and Australian navies. This co-acquisition model can create broader economies of scale, driving down per-boat costs. While fielding a common submarine among the three navies may be too great a leap for the United States, utilizing common components or weapons systems could likewise drive down costs and create useful supply chain redundancies.
An Allied Force for the Future
In an early February meeting with his Australian counterpart, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth voiced his support for AUKUS and underscored its importance for U.S. defense objectives in the Indo-Pacific. This is a welcome sign from the new administration, but more can be done.
The United States cannot cede the initiative to Beijing in this military competition; Washington must leverage AUKUS as a model to proactively shape the regional balance of power in America’s favor. As Secretary Hegseth noted, “this is not a mission, in the Indo-Pacific, that America can undertake by itself.” By exploring new opportunities to expand AUKUS and strengthen existing collaboration under the agreement, the United States can play to its competitive advantages and regain the upper hand in the Indo-Pacific.
Eli Glickman is a senior at the University of California, Berkeley and an undergraduate research fellow at the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab.
Pieter van Wingerden is a recent graduate from Claremont McKenna College, where he was president of the campus’ Alexander Hamilton Society chapter.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.