Washington: Republican lawmakers opposed a plan to expedite the sale of US attack submarines to Australia and demanded that the White House approve more military spending to increase the size of the US fleet.
Republican Senator Roger Wicker, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is driving the initiative. On Friday, he gave an interview to Politico in which he explained his thinking.
He told the outlet, referring to the submarine sale, "It makes sense to be sure we have enough submarines for our own security needs before we endorse that pillar of the [AUKUS] agreement." "The president needs to make an additional request to get us enough submarines,"
Wicker added that the White House also needs to approve "a plan for the industrial base to actually get there," even though he was unable to specify how much money would be required to build additional submarines. He stated that he and fellow Republican Senator Susan Collins will write to President Joe Biden in the upcoming days to make their cases.
Wicker argued in a last-week op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal that Washington is planning to give Canberra three nuclear-powered Virginia-class attack submarines "even before we have met our own Navy's requirements," citing intelligence that the Pentagon requires at least 66 subs. Wicker called for increasing production to 2.5 Virginia-class submarines, noting that there are currently 49 in the US fleet.
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Wicker argued in a last-week op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal that Washington is planning to give Canberra three nuclear-powered Virginia-class attack submarines "even before we have met our own Navy's requirements," citing intelligence that the Pentagon requires at least 66 subs. Wicker called for increasing production of Virginia-class submarines to 2.5 per year, noting that there are currently 49 in the US fleet.
When asked about the delay, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said he was still "very confident" the transfer of the submarine would proceed and suggested he was not concerned by the GOP opposition.
The weapon sale is a part of the three-way AUKUS security agreement that was signed in 2021 with the UK, Australia, and the US. The agreement also aims to make it easier for Canberra to acquire nuclear technology from Washington with the aid of London, which will then be applied to the construction of Australia's nuclear-powered submarines.
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The agreement has also been referred to by some officials as a means of deterring China, which has denounced the AUKUS agreement for contributing to the spread of nuclear technology worldwide and warned that it would start a "arms race" in the Indo-Pacific.