Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle speaks with reporters at the New Sanno Hotel in Tokyo, Nov. 17, 2025. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
TOKYO — The day South Korea obtains nuclear-powered submarines will change the security picture on the Korean Peninsula, but that day is years away, the chief of naval operations said Monday.
A nuclear-powered submarine is a “fundamentally different level of capability,” Adm. Daryl Caudle told reporters during a media roundtable at the New Sanno Hotel in Tokyo. Its ability to patrol for long periods at sea without refueling makes it a “global asset.”
Washington has given its approval for Seoul to build an unspecified number of nuclear-powered attack submarines, according to a fact sheet posted Thursday on the White House website.
“The United States will work closely with [South Korea] to advance requirements for this shipbuilding project, including avenues to source fuel,” the fact sheet states.
But the project is still “extremely nascent,” Caudle said.
“It’s in the future quite a bit, but you can imagine that that’s going to be more robust if that comes to fruition,” he said.
How South Korea puts submarines to use, and in partnership with the U.S. and Japan, “is yet to be seen,” he added.
Caudle — on the second leg of a 10-day trip across the region — answered a wide-ranging series of questions over an hourlong session with reporters.
He said he’s already reduced the number of Navy sailors living on their ships from approximately 7,000 to just 3,000, and he thinks he can get that to zero in the next few years.
“I’ve been able to pull sailors off ships and, in a prioritized way, move them to the barracks and then move the more senior folks that are in the barracks out into town,” he said. “And, so, that’s continuing to go on.”
Caudle also said that U.S. naval deployments to Latin America will not impact ship numbers or naval strength in the Indo-Pacific, where countering China remains a top U.S. priority.
“I think there will be a persistent presence of naval forces in the Western Hemisphere to combat illicit trafficking — including [narcotics] trafficking — but it should not in any way take away from any of the forces we have here in the Western Pacific to do that,” he said.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle speaks with reporters at the New Sanno Hotel in Tokyo, Nov. 17, 2025. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
Caudle said China’s role as the United States’ “pacing threat” ensures a strong Navy presence in the region.
“It should be well known to everyone in the room that China is viewed as our pacing threat, and that’s not going to change,” he said.
Caudle said he was both impressed and concerned by Beijing’s shipbuilding capacity and military advancements, including the Nov. 5 commissioning of its most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian.
Caudle said he and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan hope to bridge the gap between Chinese and American shipbuilding capacity by forging partnerships with Japan and South Korea.
Caudle first stopped in South Korea, where he visited HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hanwha Ocean shipyards to explore joint shipbuilding initiatives with Seoul.
“My recommendation to my leadership is that we get some things inked and agreements and start moving out right away,” he said.
