The US has cited its stringent domestic laws to consistently refuse to discuss the issue over the past 15 years
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Why the US won’t give India nuclear submarines
The US has cited its stringent domestic laws to consistently refuse to discuss the issue over the past 15 years
Sandeep Unnithan
On September 16, Indian Navy officials read the text of AUKUS, a US-UK-Australian military alliance, with a sense of dismay. The high point of AUKUS is that both the US and the UK will equip Australia to design and build up to eight nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) to counter the rising threat of China in the Indo-Pacific. China’s belligerence is a common concern for several countries in the region, especially the ‘Quad’ countries of US, Australia, Japan and India, who revived their grouping last year.
Indian Navy chiefs and naval veterans have raised the prospect of Indo-US collaboration on nuclear reactor propulsion technology only to have been politely rebuffed by their US counterparts.
During a Track 2 dialogue held in Australia two years ago, the US side was emphatic in its refusal, recalls an Indian representative who was part of the event. The US Congress would never contemplate discussing anything to do with the transfer of nuclear propulsion, they were told.
This request might have sounded out of place considering that India already operates nuclear submarines—becoming the world’s sixth country to do so when it commissioned the INS
Arihant in 2016. The
Arihant, however, is an SSBN (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine)—a slow-moving ‘bomber’ and a stealthy launch platform for nuclear weapons. The
Arihant and three more SSBNs under construction are part of the Strategic Forces Command. What the navy wants are SSNs, which can perform a series of tactical missions, from escorting SSBNs to accompanying its carrier battle groups and hunting enemy warships.
Since the mid-1980s, the Indian Navy has relied upon the Soviet Union, and later Russia, to the lease of SSNs—an arrangement
without precedent anywhere else in the world. It needs SSNs to prowl the maritime chokepoints into the Indian Ocean through which the Chinese PLA Navy will send warships towards India and also project power near Chinese waters.
With its growing proximity to the US over the past two decades and dismayed by what was on offer—
second-hand US warships, helicopters and aircraft carriers—Indian officials began discussing the possibility of buying or leasing US SSNs. “Let the US show its commitment to a stable defence relationship by leasing a few Los Angeles-class SSNs,” an admiral told INDIA TODAY.
The US, with over 70 operational nuclear submarines, has more nuclear submarines than Russia, France and UK put together. US N-subs use the most sophisticated nuclear reactors. The newest
Virginia class SSNs for instance have reactors that use bomb-grade uranium (U-235 enriched to over 90 %). They are designed to operate for 33 years without refuelling.
The US has consistently refused to discuss any possibility of parting with knowhow on naval nuclear reactors. This stance held through even during and after the passage of the Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement of 2008 that tacitly recognised India’s nuclear weapon status.
SSNs are regarded as the most technologically complex military platforms ever built. They are capable of tremendous underwater speed and, unlike conventional diesel-electric submarines, don’t need to surface to recharge their batteries. Their submerged endurance is limited only by the crew’s endurance or food supplies. They can carry twice the weapon load of conventional submarines and move twice as fast.
The key in an SSN is its high-performance nuclear reactor, reason they are regarded as the crown jewels of nuclear technology. Only the five permanent members of the UN Security Council possess this technology. India is looking to design and build a fleet of
six Project-76 indigenous SSNs fitted with a new nuclear reactor. (The proposal was put before the Cabinet Committee on Security for
approval this year but even if it is approved, the first unit is not expected to enter service before 2032.) Naval officials believe foreign assistance for this project might be needed, either from traditional partner Russia or from France. In 2017, Indian Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba visited a French shipyard for a closer look at its newest Barracuda class SSNs. Meanwhile, it
continued sending out feelers to the US for nuclear reactor propulsion technology for submarines and surface ships.
“You (India) are asking us for the kind of
technology we don’t give to even our closest allies, the British,” a US defence attache told INDIA TODAY some years ago. One US admiral told his Indian counterpart that the
issue of naval reactor propulsion would have to be discussed at the political level. (It is not known if the issue has ever been broached there.)
Their stance reminds naval veterans of the mid-1960s when snubbed by the US and the UK, India turned to the former Soviet Union for acquiring submarines. The Soviets provided India eight ‘Foxtrot’-class conventional submarines, and top officials spoke of eventually providing a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. In 1987, the Soviet Union provided the K-43, the world’s first true SSGN (cruise missile firing submarine), on lease. The submarine, which had entered Soviet service in 1967, could fire its anti-ship missiles from under water.
The Chakra was returned in 1989 just before the break-up of the Soviet Union. A decade-long gap in India’s nuclear capabilities continued until the mid-1990s when then navy chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat revived the lease of Akula-class SSNs from the Russian Federation. The arrangement has continued till date. The Chakra-2 was returned to Russia this year and will be replaced by the Chakra-3, currently being refitted at a Russian shipyard for induction by 2026. (Both sides are discussing the possibility of leasing a second SSN.)
India’s quest for modern naval nuclear reactors, meanwhile, continues.
When India approached France for nuclear submarine technology in 2017, it found Paris reluctant. In 2021, furious at being cut out of the submarine deal with Australia, Paris has recalled its ambassadors from Canberra and Washington. It is now
entirely possible that India might find in France another partner willing to share nuclear submarine technology.
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