Submarine decommissioning is a lengthy and laborious process, and existing scrapyards are years behind—meaning that existing submarines must remain on the register, with full crews, until their time comes.

With competition for the Indo-Pacific heating up, the US Navy wants more attack submarines. Yet a new Government Accountability Office report suggests that the Navy is losing enormous amounts of submarine availability—simply because its shipyards can’t process the existing fleet fast enough.

According to the report, maintenance delays have already cost the attack-submarine force more than 41 cumulative years of operational availability. This bottleneck extends to retirement, with submarines that are operationally useless nevertheless needing to stay crewed for years because the US doesn’t have the shipyard capacity to formally decommission the vessels. The GAO estimated that 15 attack submarines could accumulate more than 14,000 days of inactive idle time from FY2026 through FY2030, costing approximately $3.1 billion.

In short, America’s submarine industrial base problem affects the entire lifecycle of the submarine, from construction to maintenance, modernization, and now, even retirement.

An Example of America’s Submarine Woes: The USS Pasadena

The USS Pasadena (SSN-752), a Los Angeles-class attack submarine, entered inactive idle status on January 1, 2025; at that time, its dive certification expired, meaning it cannot return to operational service. However, according to the GAO report, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard isn’t expected to decommission the vessel until November 15, 2028!

That’s more than three years in purgatory. And over the course of those three years, the ship will remain crewed. Obviously, this is a very expensive proposition, which adds little operational value to the US Navy.

One silver lining is that the boat will be used for training, so it is not completely useless to the service. Nevertheless, the GAO calculates the waiting period will cost the Navy around $300 million in operating and support costs—all for a submarine that cannot be deployed, cannot dive, needs sailors, money, food, and support, and is simply in limbo while it waits to be decommissioned.

The Pasadena case study isn’t an isolated failure. GAO says Navy shipyards are simply overloaded with work. Over the past decade, the Navy spent approximately $3.3 billion supporting idle Los Angeles-class submarines—and another $835 million supporting idle Virginia-class submarines, the Los Angeles class’ intended replacement. GAO puts the cost at roughly $230,000 per day for every submarine sitting pierside waiting for maintenance or decommissioning.

The most notorious example of wasted effort on submarine repairs is the USS Boise (SSN-764), a Los Angeles-class sub that the Navy decided to deactivate in April after spending $1.6 billion on maintenance efforts. The Boise has become emblematic of the maintenance backlog, and hints at just how many resources are required to return an aging submarine to service.

Submarine Maintenance Is Far Harder Than Ship Maintenance

Submarine maintenance is notoriously difficult because nuclear attack submarines aren’t ordinary ships. They require maintenance of nuclear propulsion systems and reactor-related work. They require hull inspections, sonar and combat-system work, piping and electrical work, and highly specialized welding. Crucially, to do all of this, the Navy needs dry-dock availability. Much of the work requires nuclear-certified personnel and facilities that cannot simply be expanded overnight. The problem cascades, too; when one submarine occupies the scarce infrastructure and labor force available for such a project, it pushes back the next boat in line, and so on.

Strategically, the backlog is a serious problem for the Navy. Attack submarines are one of America’s most valuable assets in a potential conflict with China. The geography of the Pacific makes attack submarines so important because they offer stealth, intelligence collection, and the ability to penetrate areas increasingly dangerous for surface ships. The GAO’s findings—$3.1 billion wasted and 41 years lost!—will have strategic reverberations for years to come.

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a writer and attorney focused on national security, technology, and political culture. His work has appeared in Tablet, City Journal, The Hill, The Spectator, and The Cipher Brief. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global & Joint Program Studies from NYU. More at harrisonkass.com.

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