Submarine Motherships ???

Here is an essay recommending turning US submarines into motherships for drones:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/navy-wants-turn-submarines-drone-motherships-205704

In a former life I was a nuclear submarine officer. As part of my training I attended the SOAC course (Submarine Officer Advanced Course) in preparation for being a department head and potential commanding officer.

During the course I did a research project on the topic of anti-aircraft weapons for submarines. When I presented my findings to my peers (the other SOAC students), their objections were loud and clear. None of them liked the idea. Period.

Why? Submarine survival depends on remaining undetected. Firing a missile toward an aircraft immediately tells your enemy where you are and gives them an excellent chance of sinking your sub.

So, how safe are subs when they hover or surface to launch or retrieve drones? Not very. So what has changed?

Perhaps the US military is thinking in terms of perpetual air superiority, which is a possible but unlikely situation ... especially in light of Chinese advances in military capability.

Or perhaps today's sub commanders just do what they're told, regardless of its practicality or morality. Case in point - captains of subs carrying first strike nuclear missiles who participate in naked threats against the Russians. I might have accepted such a mission back then, but I'd turn it down now. Nukes are last resort weapons, and even then their use is highly questionable.

But not to worry, had I refused such a mission it wouldn't have mattered much. They'd just find someone else to do it. From what I've been able to gather, there's not much common sense in today's military ... or morality. They're all just following orders, and in their minds no order is illegal.