"This is not a good look for the US of A. Soon, we will need to have a come to momma meeting with our teammates. We need to confess we flunked the math test and cannot deliver on schedule. Sorry about that. Could Trump get us out of this mess without defaulting? Sure, if he had another term. But he does not, and we are now stuck with this hot mess called Aukus."
Seemed like a good deal at one time. As usual, during the Biden Administration when this deal was agreed to, everything was coming up roses. Of course, nobody bothered to perform due diligence on the major party in this agreement (that would be us). BTW, Aukus is an agreement agreed to on September 15, 2021. It was all about subs and getting some state-of-the-art subs to Australia so they could be the back door cop on China expansionism. The idea was great - how to get there is a whole different issue.
Starting in 2032, the United States was going to sell a couple of new or slightly used Virginia Class submarines to the Aussies. And then later in the decade, one more. Sounds good, right? After all, we were getting rid of those clunky old Los Angeles Class attack subs and replacing them with much improved Virginia Class subs. But then we came face to face with that math thing which always bedeviled Biden and crew.
As the Los Angles subs age out, we need to have a new Virginia Class sub ready to go to replace it. If not, we will have a hole in our submarine defense posture. Now the math thing. To keep his political base happy, and to keep spending money on "green" nonsense, Biden decided to cut the funding for building the Virginia Class subs from two a year to one a year. One might think, if we do that, how in the world are we going to fit our needs? And BTW - we are on the hook to sell three of these new or slightly used Virginia Class subs to the Aussies in 2032. What gives here?
Trump has now had a chance to review this Aukus program, which he was never briefed on when he took office. I can only imagine what went through his head when he found out what a cluster this thing is. The entire program is now over three years behind schedule! Biden cutting the funding authorization from two per year to one per year certainly did not help. And because of the fact we are on the hook to deliver three subs to Australia in the 2030 timeframe (they will not exist at that time), Trump might just kill the program as it exists. Why? First off, it is still and always, America first. We can't afford to have any holes in our attack submarine program. Period!
One other thing which is glue in the gears. Our industrial base for producing submarines is lacking. We need a domestic Marshall Plan to get it back on schedule. I mean, good grief! Have we offshored everything which we used to build? We need more qualified companies which can build state-of-the-art subs and ships - NOW.
This is not a good look for the US of A. Soon, we will need to have a come to momma meeting with our teammates. We need to confess we flunked the math test and cannot deliver on schedule. Sorry about that. Could Trump get us out of this mess without defaulting? Sure, if he had another term. But he does not, and we are now stuck with this hot mess called Aukus.
No comments:
Post a Comment