Sadly, that's not the case.
Australia is well underway in turning herself into a new US state and a US military outpost in the South Pacific...
... and moving Australia itself into the crosshairs of China and the PLA.
Australia is well underway in turning herself into a new US state and a US military outpost in the South Pacific...
... and moving Australia itself into the crosshairs of China and the PLA.
Former Australian Army Major and Whistleblower, David McBride described AUKUS beautifully in light of recent events:
For his commitment to justice, the Australian Gov. tried to intimidate and imprison him.
For his commitment to justice, the Australian Gov. tried to intimidate and imprison him.
Lethe
Captain
Yes. Following the AUKUS announcement, it was immediately obvious to any casual observer (such as myself) that there is no spare capacity in the American (or British) nuclear submarine industries to accommodate additional orders across even the medium-term. The political implications of this were also obvious. It is one thing to place an emergency order for Super Hornets (as RAAF did when it became clear that F-35 was not going to meet schedule) when the American context is that Boeing and Congress want to keep making Super Hornets but US Navy does not want to keep buying them. It is quite another thing to ask USN to effectively give its own submarine production slots over to Australia at a time when there is real concern about the adequacy of current production levels and inventory trends in the first place!
And so we have these quite predictable expressions of concern from two Senators who have been (or were) on the Armed Services Committee, i.e. they are not just random legislators pulled from a hat, but are persons connected to the issues that they raise. Add to this are made a little while ago from a relevant US Navy figure:
Now, that is a long way from saying that the project is doomed, even if it probably should be. The political momentum behind this is considerable and where there is the political will there is typically some solution to be found that satisfies those political objectives, even if it falls short in other terms. For those of us who are not overly enamoured with this brave new nuclear world, the hope is that, emerging from the forthcoming defence review to be published in the next few months, will be a recommendation for Australia to also pursue a new conventional submarine capability, in order to get new boats in the water faster and to mitigate against schedule issues with the nuclear boats. I think that would be sensible decision on its own terms, but importantly it also opens the door to, at some point in the future, winding back the nuclear program.
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plawolf
Lieutenant General
You’d have thought the whole point of the AUKUS sub deal was to take that additional Australian taxpayer billions to expand US SSN production capacity to help address the expected cliff face of US sub numbers as the LA fleet retires.
Instead they just want to pocket the additional money as more profits and reallocate USN sub slots for the RAN. So in effect, do what they were going to do anyways and get an extra $200bn for lolz.
If you pitched that as the plot of a satirical comedy it would be rejected for being too unbelievably.
Instead they just want to pocket the additional money as more profits and reallocate USN sub slots for the RAN. So in effect, do what they were going to do anyways and get an extra $200bn for lolz.
If you pitched that as the plot of a satirical comedy it would be rejected for being too unbelievably.
Lethe
Captain
Expanded production capacity simply must be the solution. The question is how this is to be achieved. No doubt the answer is complicated and has occupied much of the negotiations to date. But whatever solution is arrived at, it will certainly take some years to bring to fruition, which indeed suggests that Australia operating SSNs is more a prospect for the 2040s than the 2030s.
The criticism that Australia's notional SSNs will simply take too long to arrive is the only one that has found any real purchase with establishment figures to date. Peter Dutton, the former Defence Minister under the previous Liberal government (and current leader of the Liberal opposition), under whom AUKUS and the nuclear submarine announcement was orchestrated, claims that these schedule concerns are overblown. Specifically he claims that Washington would've been willing to transfer two Virginia-class submarines from the production line .
So when you look at statements from relevant American figures that push back against this notion of simply adding more orders to the existing American production line, which effectively means taking orders from USN and giving them to Australia, the implication is that Dutton is full of shit, and therefore the schedule concerns are very real, and therefore the wisdom of the whole enterprise is in question. Hence the prospect (hope!) that the forthcoming defence review may recommend a further conventional submarine acquisition program as a "Plan B".
In any case we will know a lot more in a few months.
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Lethe
Captain
The Barracuda vs. Soryu vs. whatever the Germans were offering decision was taken under former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull has since claimed that one of the reasons the French design was selected is because, being derived from the new French SSN design, it would be easier to subsequently switch to nuclear propulsion if that were later deemed necessary.
If Australia were to reboot a new conventional program, Soryu/Taigei would be a strong contender. Any such acquisition would (or should) emphasize sticking as close to an established design as practical in order to minimise risks, costs and schedule. Soryu/Taigei as a large SSK is probably the closest thing to a "turn-key" solution out there, and there would be a clear political-strategic argument in favour of the selection also. There has also been some talk of a "son of Collins", but I think that prospect would become less attractive on closer examination in terms of knowledge preservation, tooling, number of systems that would need to be recreated from scratch, etc.
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