There is an old saying in war that amateurs talk about strategy while professionals talk about logistics. If I were to craft an equivalent truism about submarines relative to a potential war with China, it would be that amateurs talk about submarine technology while professionals talk about submarine numbers.
To that end, reporters exploring the impact of submarines in a potential war often talk to the wrong “experts.” The Wall Street Journal recently published an article that made this mistake, with naval experts and submarine veterans suggesting that a war over Taiwan would be some sort of “Hunt for Red October,” mano-a-mano fight with American submarines pitted against a Chinese Communist version of the “Russkies” of old, with evolving Chinese technology offsetting American submarine advantage.
That is not how the war would play out. If it happens, this would be a war about numbers.
While it may be true that our technical advantage is fading, that is not the most worrisome matter. Rather, the problem is that the American submarine numbers shortfall is so acute that if China invades Taiwan, our submarines won’t have the luxury of chasing Chinese submarines around the ocean — we simply won’t have enough submarines to pursue that mission.
As the sole American asset that has any chance of stopping the cross-strait invasion of Taiwan in what we call a “denied environment,” America’s limited number of submarines will be completely consumed with sinking invading Chinese surface ships. Other American naval assets will simply have to figure out how to defend themselves against the Chinese submarine threat.
China benefited from the 9/11 attacks against the U.S. in several ways, including a decades-long diversion of American resources away from capabilities with the potential to threaten that nation. But the decline of our submarine force began well prior to 2001, when President Bill Clinton decided to cash in on the so-called “peace dividend” by decommissioning submarines like the one I commanded halfway through their useful lives. His crystal ball said that with the Cold War over, we would never again need submarines. It’s incredible how myopic our crystal balls tend to be.
If this poor premonition wasn’t enough, over the next 20 years malfeasance in Congress and the Department of Defense caused such damage to the submarine shipbuilding program that the Chinese themselves couldn’t have choreographed it better. Unsteady funding, poorly defined requirements, failure to stabilize a highly skilled workforce and policies that resulted in an active reduction in the number and quality of second- and third-tier suppliers all contributed to the inability of building yards to keep pace with submarine construction demand.
During the Reagan administration, the same two building yards that are in existence today were able to pump out four to six submarines per year; today, they can’t even produce two per year. The difference between then and now is having a president who cared, a Congress that provided consistent funding, and a Defense Department and Navy staff that knew what they were doing. Budget efficiency is important, up until the point where weapon systems are delivered too late to do any good. Our government must come to the realization that in today’s strategic environment, the most important factor is delivery schedule.
To add insult to injury, as new construction programs failed to achieve their targets, the number of operational submarines fell even further due to the improper management of submarine maintenance, to the extent that we currently have one submarine, the USS Boise, that has been out of action since 2017 awaiting repair. In all, 37 percent of our submarine force is now out of commission awaiting maintenance.
If this doesn’t paint a sufficiently dire picture, Congress and the Navy have so underfunded submarine weapons that it’s possible that we could run out of torpedoes before any war over Taiwan could be won.
It is these factors and not, as the much of the media asserts, China’s “underwater great wall,” that is the major threat to our freedom of action in a future war. As the great philosopher Pogo once put it, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
During World War II, the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown was put out of action during the Battle of the Coral Sea. Returning for quick repairs to Pearl Harbor, Admiral Chester Nimitz ordered that the shipyard had to complete repairs to the Yorktown in a mere 72 hours in order to get the ship ready for the coming Battle of Midway.
We won that battle, but it remains to be seen how we would do in a war over Taiwan. But one thing is clear: The Navy today needs to develop a “Yorktown Plan,” using waivers and temporary measures to get our submarines out of maintenance if necessary for a potential future war.
In short, we need to focus less on the enemy, and focus more on restoring strategic priorities and governmental competence. From all appearances, we have an incredibly long way to go.
William Toti is a retired submarine captain and commodore who operated in the Pacific his entire Navy career. He is former defense industry CEO, and now serves as a consultant and co-host of the “Unauthorized History of the Pacific War” podcast.