The U.S. Navy today possesses the most technologically advanced submarine force in the world. Its nuclear-powered attack submarines and ballistic missile submarines remain unmatched in speed, endurance, and global reach. Yet despite this extraordinary quality, the Navy faces a growing strategic problem in the Western Pacific that technology alone cannot solve: there are simply not enough submarines available, in the right places, at the right time, and they cannot be built fast enough to keep pace with the threat.
Rather than seek perfect platforms, Beijing has emphasized regional mass, industrial speed, and geographic advantage. The People’s Liberation Army Navy does not need to match the United States submarine-for-submarine in order to challenge American influence in the South China Sea. It needs only to generate enough undersea presence, uncertainty, and persistence to raise the cost of U.S. intervention. In that environment, numbers, proximity, and readiness matter more than the raw capability of individual platforms.
The U.S. Navy’s exclusive reliance on nuclear-powered submarines for nearly all undersea missions has become a strategic bottleneck. Nuclear submarines are optimized for global operations: transoceanic transit, sustained high-speed maneuver, and worldwide strike. But many of the missions most likely in a Western Pacific conflict — sea denial, chokepoint control, intelligence collection, special operations support, and ambush in shallow or congested waters — do not require nuclear propulsion. In fact, for many of these missions, nuclear submarines may not be the optimal platform.
Modern non-nuclear, diesel-electric submarines equipped with air-independent propulsion are among the quietest vessels ever built (quieter than nukes). Operating at low speeds on battery power, they can be exceptionally difficult to detect, particularly in the shallow, acoustically complex waters of the South China Sea. These submarines are designed to sit silently astride chokepoints, deny access to contested waters, and impose constant uncertainty on adversary planners. In short, they excel at the very missions that dominate Indo-Pacific war scenarios.
Just as important as their operational suitability is their speed of production. A modern AIP submarine can typically be built and delivered in three to five years. By contrast, U.S. nuclear submarines often require eight to 10 years — or more — from authorization to operational deployment. Ballistic missile submarines take even longer. In a strategic competition where the next decade is decisive, this difference in production times is not marginal. In fact, it may be determinative. Submarines delivered in the 2030s do little to address deterrence gaps in the late 2020s.
Additionally, capitalizing on Japan and South Korea’s more immediate ability to deliver top-of-the-line diesel electric submarines would allow America to ramp up its at-home industrial capability as initial submarines are built by our allies and quickly deployed to the theatre where they are needed immediately.
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Cost amplifies this production disparity. A modern AIP submarine generally costs between $750 million and $1 billion per hull. A Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine now exceeds $3.5 billion per boat. A Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine approaches $9 to $10 billion each. The arithmetic is unavoidable: for the price of a single nuclear submarine, the U.S. can field multiple highly capable non-nuclear submarines, and field them years earlier — in a critical deterrence time window.
This reality would open the door to a pragmatic, affordable adjustment in American undersea strategy. By canceling just one of the 43 planned Virginia-class attack submarines and one of the 12 planned Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, the Navy would free up well over $12 billion in procurement funding. That sum is more than sufficient to build existing allied AIP submarine designs, establish training pipelines, and build six advanced non-nuclear submarines in partnership with key allies Japan and South Korea. Crucially, redirecting submarine-building dollars from nuclear to non-nuclear submarines would enhance deterrence. The remaining Columbia force would still provide overwhelming strategic stability, while the attack submarine force would remain dominant globally.
The benefit of this exchange is immediate and concrete: more submarines, sooner, where they are most needed, and for less money.
The structure of such a program matters as much as its scale. The initial tranche of eight submarines should be built using a distributed allied model. Four should be constructed in the U.S., with two each built in Japan and South Korea. This approach aligns industrial capacity with geography and transforms submarine construction from a purely national endeavor into a shared defense enterprise.
Equally important, allied participation should be reciprocal rather than symbolic. Each partner nation should commit to building at least two additional submarines for its own navy using the same or closely related designs. This is just the kind of deal President Donald Trump excels at bringing about, and it ensures sustained production, economies of scale, and a growing allied undersea force capable of operating interchangeably with U.S. submarines. Instead of a boutique acquisition, this becomes a durable regional capability.
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This allied construction model also solves a chronic and underappreciated problem: sustainment. Submarines intended for persistent Western Pacific operations cannot depend on returning to the continental U.S. for maintenance, training, or repair — especially in a high-end conflict. By enabling construction and long-term support in allied nations, the U.S. establishes a forward undersea industrial base capable of maintaining both U.S. and allied submarines. That resilience increases operational availability, shortens maintenance cycles, and complicates adversary targeting.
Within the U.S., this program offers an opportunity to expand the naval industrial base without placing additional strain on the two nuclear submarine shipyards that are already operating at capacity. Several American shipyards that currently build complex surface combatants are well-positioned to build non-nuclear submarines.
While there are other capable shipyards, the following three are natural competitors for the proposed construction. And to further the speed delivery, each of these three shipyards should build one submarine, with the yard that delivers first with no break in quality to be awarded the fourth sub of this tranche.
Huntington Ingalls Industries’ shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, is the largest surface shipbuilder in the country, producing destroyers, amphibious ships, and cutters for the U.S. Navy. While Pascagoula does not currently build submarines, HII, as a corporation, possesses deep submarine expertise through its Newport News Shipbuilding division. That corporate knowledge, combined with Ingalls’ skilled workforce and modern facilities, makes it a logical candidate for AIP submarine construction.
The Hanwha Philly Shipyard represents an even more compelling opportunity. Its parent company, Hanwha Ocean, is a leading builder of South Korea’s KSS-III AIP submarines — among the most advanced non-nuclear submarines in the world. With Hanwha investing heavily in modernizing its U.S. shipyard footprint, Philadelphia could serve as a bridge for joint allied production, technology transfer, and shared training pipelines. Few opportunities align allied capability, industrial expansion, and strategic need so cleanly.
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Maine and Electric Boat of Connecticut are both subsidiaries of General Dynamics. The Bath Iron Works, long known for building Arleigh Burke–class destroyers, also possesses the steel fabrication expertise, modular construction experience, and quality control culture necessary to transition to diesel-electric submarine hulls. Bringing Bath into submarine construction would diversify the naval industrial base while leveraging Electric Boat’s experience building nuclear submarines.
Beyond cost and speed, non-nuclear submarines offer additional advantages that align naturally with alliance warfare. They rely on more conventional machinery, easing recruitment and training challenges at a time when the Navy faces persistent personnel shortages. Crews are smaller. Maintenance pipelines are simpler. American submariners would also be operating platforms fundamentally similar to those used by allies, improving interoperability, shared logistics, and combined operations from the outset of any conflict.
Critics will argue that nuclear submarines are irreplaceable. They are correct — and this proposal does not attempt to replace them. Instead, it assigns missions to the platforms best suited to execute them. Nuclear submarines retain their indispensable role in global strike, intelligence, and deterrence. Non-nuclear submarines handle regional sea denial and persistence missions that do not require unlimited endurance and that benefit from the ability of diesel electric boats to operate more quietly than nuclear submarines and in the shallower environments of the South China Sea.
Others will argue that China will still outnumber U.S. submarines in the region, and that will be true — but less so with faster-to-deploy diesel electric boats delivered sooner. A larger allied force of quiet, diesel-electric, forward-based submarines dramatically increases the complexity of Chinese planning and raises the cost of aggression — making peace more likely through deterrence.
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In the end, this proposal reflects a simple strategic truth. Deterrence is not built on what can be fielded someday. It is built on what is already present when a crisis begins. By trading a small amount of future nuclear capacity for a decisive increase in near-term undersea presence, the U.S. can strengthen deterrence, reinforce alliances, expand its own and its allies’ naval industrial bases and ensure that the Western Pacific remains contested terrain rather than conceded space.
In the decade ahead, the most important submarines will not be the most advanced ones still under construction. They will be the ones already on station.
Ken Cuccinelli served as acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the 46th Attorney General of Virginia