Defense spending across Asia has increased substantially during the past 10 years, and looks to continue growing apace into the 2020s. Nowhere is this more apparent than in plans to spend nearly $40 billion on submarines during the next decade, as estimated by Avascent Analytics’ Global Platforms and Systems database. Although China’s naval forces strengthen year by year, the conventional view that this aspiring regional hegemon is the main driver of the region’s undersea arms race is simplistic. Rather, much of the region’s spike in interest in subsurface assets stems from individual nations’ pursuit of undersea area-denial capabilities aimed predominantly at their immediate neighbors.
Understanding the territorial and historical rationales of each country’s pursuit of submarines offers a counterpoint to the consensus that the region is currently engaged in a destabilizing military buildup caused by an increasingly assertive and prosperous China. It demonstrates that the Asia-Pacific remains a region where distrust and historical animosities still linger, despite a broad alignment of economic interests – a region unable to realize the benefits of a cohesive, NATO-like alliance system for a myriad of reasons.
For example, Pakistan’s intended acquisition of up to eight Chinese-origin Yuan-class (Type-241) submarines aligns with Islamabad’s broader vision for denying access to the country’s principal maritime approaches in case of conflict with India. The country is even taking out loans from China to finance this purchase, revealing much about Pakistan’s strategic priorities, given a relatively limited defense budget – much to the chagrin of American observers. Likewise, Singapore will procure four German-built Type-218 submarines to amplify its ability to patrol and defend its littoral – an expression of the existential vulnerability it has felt for decades from the larger, once-hostile neighbors immediately surrounding it. In addition, Indonesia will also procure three South Korean Chang Bogo-class submarines and four French Scorpene-class submarines which it will deploy predominantly for coastal defense purposes as well.
Deploying fleets of seafaring subsurface assets to protect territorial waters close to home appears counterintuitive at first glance. None of these three countries aspires to become blue-water capable any time soon – surely, there must be more conventional, less expensive options to defending islands and harbors than ultra-quiet attack submarines. Ironically, though undeniably headline-making investments, submarines offer one of the most economical, cost-effective means of area-denial and conventional deterrence. Surface fleets capable of performing area-denial operations would be as expensive and many times more vulnerable. Deployment of potentially less expensive assets like unmanned underwater vehicles for such missions has not been widely operationalized across the globe. Floating even just one or two into contested waters often suffices in unnerving adversarial surface fleets that operate in such tight, tense quarters. The Argentinian Navy’s withdrawal from action after the sinking of the cruiser General Belgrano by a British submarine during the Falklands War demonstrates the immense effect the presence of a submarine can have. All three aforementioned programs represent ambitions to control their respective littorals in the event of crisis – with Indonesia’s ability to tame the Strait of Malacca in particular possibly the most consequential from an international perspective.
Deploying submarines for area denial purposes is a particularly cost-effective way of gaining an asymmetric advantage over larger adversaries as well. Only Taiwan and Vietnam intend to prosecute area-denial missions with China squarely in mind. Vietnam received six Kilo-class submarines from Russia between 2014 and 2017 in a clear effort to beef up its presence in the South China Sea and cement its claims to features in a hotly contested body of water. In so doing, Hanoi sought to exploit a key vulnerability in the People’s Liberation Army Navy expanding surface fleet: underdeveloped anti-submarine warfare capabilities. That Vietnam expended the equivalent of its entire defense budget in 2009 (the year in which they signed the contract agreement for the six vessels) demonstrates its commitment to the principle of area denial as a central tenet of its maritime defense strategy.
Taiwan is similarly pursuing an ambitious indigenous submarine design program (with aspirations to produce up to eight units domestically) as a direct response to the threat of Chinese intervention. Taipei will know that the odds of successfully and comprehensively repelling a Chinese expeditionary operation on the island are not in its favor. Its desire to expand and modernize its submarine fleet stems from an understanding that such assets could prove critical in hampering their more powerful adversary’s progress in such contingencies. Few suppliers have been willing to provide foreign-built designs, given Beijing’s sensitivity over arms sales to the island nation, which explains why they have chosen to go the domestic route. Underlying this aspiration, though, is the reasonable gamble that several of these platforms in and around contested waters would go a long way toward ensuring the security of the island.
Some larger navies in the region harbor blue-water ambitions in which submarines are deployed in more conventional roles, as “screens” for surface fleet groups or as bona fide “hunter-killers” of adversary surface fleets. For example, despite a procurement process that often delays acquisitions by the decade rather than the year, India still formally intends to restock its submarine fleet with up to 24 units capable of operating throughout the Indian Ocean (it currently operates fewer than 10, of which only a handful are operational at a time). South Korea’s budding regional maritime ambitions also coincide with its globally dominant commercial shipbuilding sector. The 27-submarine fleet that it proposes to operate by 2030 will foray increasingly beyond the waters off the Korean Peninsula to participate in a variety of humanitarian-assistance/disaster-relief, peacekeeping support, and anti-piracy operations around the world.
Yet, concurrently, both countries’ undersea warfare strategies revolve predominantly around the concept of area-denial vis-à-vis their immediate neighbors. South Korea’s submarines – along with the country’s fleet of indigenously manufactured, Aegis-capable, super-sized destroyers and amphibious assault vessels – are primarily intended to be deployed as forward-looking assets in its ongoing standoff with Pyongyang. They are tasked most importantly with keeping the three seas clear of enemy submarines and establishing absolute maritime dominance in the event of a peninsular conflict. India’s quest to establish its supremacy in the Indian Ocean can also be attributed as an alarmed response to its near parity with Pakistan’s subsurface assets and (to a lesser extent) increasing Chinese maritime excursions in that domain. Blue-water ambitions do not outstrip more immediate concerns closer to home.
The other two remaining major defense spenders in the region, Japan and Australia, also have large submarine programs underway as well, but it appears that both countries primarily have industrial concerns in mind. Japan’s unwavering commitment to construct one submarine every year (no more, no less) can be attributed to Tokyo’s commitment to sustaining its uniquely uncompetitive shipbuilding industry. Australia’s expected outlays on 12 new Barracuda-class submarines represent a cyclical, once-every-generation recapitalization of its existing fleet designed to preserve its naval industrial base, rather than in reaction to changes in its strategic environment. Yet it is impossible to avoid the influence of area-denial considerations in both countries as well. Japan’s role as host to a significant American naval presence in the Western Pacific and its increasingly disconcerting territorial disputes with several neighbors makes submarine deployment a necessary cornerstone of its maritime strategy. Likewise, Australia patrols large swaths of open and narrow waters in order to keep threats far from its shores. The country’s investments in (longer-ranged) conventional submarines reflects its desire to retain deterrent and surveillance capabilities away from its homeland.
Many of the Asia-Pacific region’s submarine acquisition programs constitute critical pillars of much broader naval expansion programs. The coincidence of acquisition timelines among the many programs across the region stems more from a revival in interest following leaner times during the financial crises in 1997 and 2008 than it does a consciously coordinated effort. The emphasis on submarine acquisitions suggests that each player places an outsized value on them to serve its unique security needs. The combination of the protective value that they offer and the relatively few units they require to effectively provide that value make submarines an attractive and reasonable procurement for many of these countries. The specific rationale behind the region’s manifold submarine programs varies as widely as there are countries in the region. Yet every country in the region can attribute its interest in undersea warfare assets to this area-denial principle, from the largest navies to the smallest. In a region where nationalism still runs rampant, the heightened national prestige of making such marquee purchases that absorb significant chunks of available funding for years to come only further incentivizes purchases.
Avascent Analytics analyzes the defense spending of 60 countries in its Global Platforms and Systems (GPS) database. The GPS database itemizes and forecasts over 98 percent of international defense investment spending accessible to Western defense suppliers. Avascent Analytics defines “accessible” markets mainly as those to which Western suppliers are permitted to export. Russia and China are generally not accessible markets for Western defense suppliers, and Avascent therefore does not cover either country as a customer of defense equipment in the GPS database. The same is true of Iran, North Korea, and other countries with notable levels of defense spending. However, the GPS database does closely track Chinese and Russian-origin suppliers whenever they provide defense equipment to any one of the 60 countries of interest.
Chris Yee-Paulson, a Market Analyst at Avascent Analytics, also contributed to this article.
