Colin Clark, Aaron Mehta, Breaking Defense:
Rep. Rob Wittman, one of the most powerful defense lawmakers on Capitol Hill, sent a shot across the bow this weekend at anyone who thinks the solution to getting Australia new nuclear attack subs is simply to have America make them.
“There’s been a lot of talk about well, the Australians would just buy a US submarine. That’s not going to happen,” Wittman, currently the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower subcommittee, told Breaking Defense in a Saturday interview. The issue, he said, is that the US cannot afford to interupt its own submarine buy: “I just don’t see how we’re going to build a submarine and sell it to Australia during that time.”.
