It can be hard to tell which announcements from Iran are true, which ones are wish-fulfillment, and which ones are simply Iran trying to keep up with the Joneses. Consider that when you hear the news that Iran is planning to build nuclear submarines.
According to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, Rear Adm. Abbas Zamini said that Iran is “at the initial phases” of this sub-making venture. The news agency also noted the admiral’s recognition of Iran’s “astonishing progress in developing and acquiring civilian nuclear technology for various power-generation, agricultural and medical purposes,” which allows Iran to “think of manufacturing nuclear-fueled submarines.” Read: this is still in the conceptual stage. Zamini also said that all countries have the right to manufacture nuclear-powered submarines for peaceful purposes. And Iran wouldn’t violate any international treaties by doing so — unlike, say, if it built the bomb.
In other words, it’s a military program involving nuclear energy, but with enough distance from a nuclear weapons program to give Tehran freedom to build it.
If Iran can pull it off, that is. It’s possible, though it’ll be difficult and take a long time. First, Iran will have to miniaturize the country’s nuclear technology into a safe and working power plant capable of powering a sub. Second, one does not just install a nuclear plant onto a submarine. Iran will have to build a new sub from scratch around the future sub’s nuclear plant.
“I’m sure the Iranians are in the early stages of SSN development, if indeed they’re serious about this,” Jim Holmes, an associate professor of strategy and policy at the Naval War College, tells Danger Room. (SSN is a naval abbreviation for nuclear-powered attack subs.) “It is relatively easy to install nuclear propulsion in a carrier, chiefly because you have lots of space to work with. By contrast, you in effect construct the submarine hull — a tube — around the nuclear plant. This poses huge problems, simply because the confines of a submarine are very cramped.”
They’ll also need lots of enriched uranium.
“There’s a lot of variation in how ‘highly’ enriched the fuel needs to be. It depends on the design, the ship type, and the navy,” Holmes says. This means Iran would possibly “need to enrich an excess of fuel for their first naval reactor – if only because they’re bound to make mistakes and be less efficient than they would be after going through the experimentation and learning process. Not an easy thing with [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors occasionally snooping around.”
Though Iran may not have to worry. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which limits nuclear weapon states to five countries (not including Iran), also removes IAEA safeguards for nuclear materials used for “non-explosive military purposes such as naval propulsion,” according to Cole Harvey of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. This mean Iran could theoretically move nuclear materials into its propulsion program, before refashioning the material into “bomb cores in a cheating or breakout scenario,” Harvey wrote in an article for the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Iran has no tradition of manufacturing their own subs, aside from around a dozen or more mine-laying miniature vessels. (Iran’s three diesel-powered Kilo class attack submarines were bought from Russia.) And according to Iranian state media, Iran is only now capable of repairing the Kilo on their own. “So, the Iranians can’t do what our navy did with the Nautilus in the 1950s — i.e., take a working conventional submarine and retrofit a nuclear plant to it,” Holmes said, referring to the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine.
Iran’s navy also operates primarily in the Persian Gulf, which is too shallow for nuclear subs. But nuclear subs could allow Iran to operate more effectively in the Gulf of Oman, as a way to challenge U.S. ships before they reach the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most vital oil shipping corridors — and before they reach Iran’s coast.
“It’s not impossible,” said Holmes. “But it seems hard to believe this would be a high priority for Tehran considering the financial and engineering barriers to entry. It could be a matter of keeping up with the Joneses. Nuclear-driven warships are a token of great power, and tokens are something aspiring great powers like the Islamic Republic covet.”
Iran’s conventional submarines are nothing to dismiss either. All it takes is one mine exploding in the Persian Gulf to drive up insurance costs for international shipping, and the risk for U.S. commanders that an armed enemy sub could be anywhere, even right below you, can have an outsized effect compared to surface ships.
That’s reason enough for why the U.S. is doubling its Persian Gulf minesweeper fleet and boosting its compliment of MH-53 “Sea Stallion” helicopters, which can hunt mines.
Iran’s announcements also need to be taken with a grain — or grains — of salt. In April, Iran’s Fars news agency announced that Iran was continuing with a blockade of the Strait and inspections of all ships passing through it. That would be news to the American aircraft carriers that sail through the Strait on the regular.
Those carriers are nuclear-powered
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