Why Not Both: The Case for AUKUS and the U.S. Navy
The historic Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) partnership will be a gamechanger for U.S. national security, ushering in a new era of technological cooperation and deepening ties with two of our most important allies. The first step in this partnership is the sale of nuclear-powered, conventionally armed Virginia-class submarines to Australia. But many obstacles remain, including improving the production capabilities of the industrial bases in all three countries. AIA and its member companies are moving swiftly to meet this challenge, but we can’t do it alone.
Policymakers in Washington, DC, London, and Canberra recognize our shared industrial base challenges. But some in the U.S. argue that AUKUS doesn’t merit top priority and argue that all our attention and resources should be focused on our own military. Not only do I disagree, but that perspective fails to account for one thing: In every conflict the United States has ever been part of throughout its history, it’s fought alongside partners and allies.
It’s not wrong that the U.S. Navy is short on key equipment and our shipbuilding infrastructure needs major investment. But it’s a false choice to say we can’t equip the U.S. military and those of our allies and partners, like Australia, at the same time. We in industry know we can do both — if the government makes adequate, stable, and predictable investments in the defense industrial base. It must guarantee long-term budgetary stability and certainty, and improve the policy and regulatory framework to speed both domestic production and foreign military sales to key allies.
This is the lesson we’ve learned from Ukraine. Equipping our allies and partners while filling our own stockpiles and modernizing our own equipment is the key to warfighting success. But it takes time, planning, and resourcing. You can’t flip a switch to turn on production lines in an instant, just like you can’t build a submarine overnight.
As threats worsen in the Indo-Pacific and another conflict brews in the Middle East, we must take this lesson to heart and immediately invest in a defense industrial base that can do both. A U.S. industrial base that supports both the U.S. military and our allies and partners is a strong deterrent to potential adversaries, it is a signal of support to our friends, and it is imperative to the long-term defense of this country.
