Why SeaWolf Attack Submarines Should Have Lived On & Not Been Cancelled

by Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington DC) The end of the Cold War resulted in a premature end for the promising and heavily armed Seawolf-class of submarines, capable boats that arguably would have been continued if decision-makers from the Pentagon and Congress embraced a longer-term view of potential global threats.

Seawolf Fleet

Only three Seawolf subs were built, yet the Navy initially planned a fleet of 29 boats, something that would arguably have helped avoid, diminish, or offset the service’s current submarine deficit.

For many years now, Navy commanders have been clear that combatant commander demand for submarines exceeds the number of available submarines. This has increased the threat equation for U.S. surface ships and forward-stationed forces, particularly in the Pacific.

While the collapse of the former Soviet Union undoubtedly drove a need to adjust strategic military planning, it seems in retrospect that the decision to truncate SeaWolf submarines indicated that Pentagon planners massively underestimated or did not envision the kind of undersea threat Russia’s submarine technology would present to NATO over the long term. Russia has never had much of a surface Navy and has for decades largely presented a land threat, yet its submarine fleet has been and appears to be extremely dangerous to the West, U.S., and NATO.

Perhaps Pentagon planners would have been well served to more fully anticipate the possibility that Russia could remain or easily re-emerge as a major threat to the U.S., despite the Soviet collapse in the late 1980s.