Who Wants to Build A Submarine? Reimaging STEM's Role in Naval Dominance

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics in Developing Countries & Foreign Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Foreign Policy

Abstract

Both the Trump and Biden Administrations have reimagined the status quo of naval policy, shifting technological superiority and innovation to the forefront of subsequent national security strategy reviews. The Biden White House finds “technology, trade and security between our democratic allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific” as the key to regional democratic preservation against the rising threat of China, and has begun to use the United States’ most technologically-advanced platforms, submarines, in a more visible deterrence role to safeguard vulnerable regional partners, especially South Korea. However, this focus doesn't encompass corresponding attention to STEM education and workforce development, which are necessary for creating and manufacturing these platforms. This gap is increasingly problematic, especially in submarine procurement, with the scarcity of technical expertise and skilled workers reaching crisis level.
The industry faces a worker shortage which threatens timely enough delivery of platforms for the U.S. Navy to execute its deterrence mission within the Indo-Pacific, even as leadership commits to using the subsurface fleet to promote regional democracies through AUKUS and other partnerships. As America reimagines 21st Century naval strategy, then, the looming crisis in need of a solution is not one of policy, but of workforce development and begins not in think tanks or strategy tables, but with how the workforce is educated. Thus, the academy and the U.S. Navy must reimagine the importance of early intervention, so students are engaged and prepared to enter the workforce able to meet the national security needs of the United States. This paper will thus present the findings of a novel attempt at building a regional Navy STEM pipeline in Connecticut and how the interplay of a reimagined STEM education and workforce development system informs a new naval strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
This paper discusses the national security impetus for investment in submarine technology, chiefly due to rising Chinese submarine production and aging American fleet. Thus, submarine procurement has surged significantly, with plans to increase from two to five submarines per year by 2030. The submarine industrial base is, however, significantly behind on recruiting goals, with the Government Accountability Office finding the industry 20% understaffed for current contracts, and the U.S. Navy suggesting a need for more than 10,000 new hires industry wide per-year for the next decade to meet the five per-year goal.
The escalating Chinese regional influence, along with commitments to utilize submarine fleets to support democratic allies like South Korea and Australia, has put a severe strain on the submarine industry, further heightened by a workforce shortage. This necessitates reimagined solutions for filling manufacturing jobs that surpass the "Cold War" mindset and embrace modern defense production's technical aspects. The paper details a pilot project in southern New England by the UConn-URI Navy STEM Coalition that builds a comprehensive pipeline to engage more people in the submarine industry through K-12 outreach, middle school summer programs, undergraduate seminars, research opportunities, and policy making courses.
Policy and international security discussions have long considered the vital role of STEM education in ensuring technological superiority, but there have been few case studies in the literature of such a program in practice. This paper will thus present the preliminary findings of the impacts of this pipeline development on student interest and generating awareness of the continuing role of submarines as a vital platform for national security. These data will be both quantitative findings from more than 4,000 total student interactions over two years, and qualitative engagements with select groups to get in-depth ethnographic details to better understand which Coalition activities encouraged them to join the submarine industrial base the must. Such a mixed methods approach helps lend a clarify of purpose and granularity that will allow for more targeted outreach as this workforce crisis continues throughout the period of intense submarine procurement.
The Coalition's blended research mindset, which combines engineering education with social science and international security policy, allows for effective coordination between STEM and policy fields to address national security challenges. As the US focuses on overcoming technological deficits, for instance in microchips and hypersonic missiles, the discussion highlights best practices, how to launch similar programs, and the need for an academic paradigm shift to understand future security environments. In this context, defense policy and technology becomes indispensable to reimagining democracy and international security, emphasizing the importance of STEM education.

Author

• Alexander T Grey, National Institute for Undersea Vehicle Technology