The nominee to be the Pentagon's senior official for the Indo-Pacific region said on Tuesday that the US Defense Department was continuing its review of the AUKUS project, which aims to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
John Noh, currently serving at the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary for East Asia, has been nominated to be assistant secretary. He said that US submarine production needs to rise from 1.2 Virginia-class submarines a year to 2.33 annually to meet AUKUS obligations.
He added that there were steps the AUKUS partners – the US, Australia, and the United Kingdom – could take to make the project more sustainable. Pentagon Under Secretary Elbridge Colby and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would have the opportunity to discuss specific recommendations.
When asked by Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen why the review, which began in July, was taking so long, Noh reiterated past Pentagon statements that the department planned to conclude it "by this fall."
Noh noted that both Australia and the United Kingdom had conducted their own reviews. Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate committee, said the US review had come, "as a surprise to this committee, to the Congress and to the general public, and as a distressing surprise to our steadfast ally, Australia."
Australian leftist/globalist Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed confidence last month that AUKUS, the biggest defense initiative in Australia's history, will move forward. He is due to meet US President Donald Trump on October 20 in Washington, with the project likely to top the agenda.
Under AUKUS, the US will sell several Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra, while Britain and Australia will later build a new AUKUS-class submarine.
The Pentagon review is being led by Colby, who said last year that submarines were a scarce, critical commodity, and US industry could not produce enough to meet American demand.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali; Editing by David Gregorio)
