By 2028, the next US administration may need to decide between adherence to the AUKUS deal as structured, or ensuring the operational viability of America’s own nuclear submarine force. Is there potential for the US to withdraw from AUKUS?
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Tag: Australian submarines
Australia’s AUKUS Tributes
At this time of rising living costs, economic uncertainty, and impending climate disaster, subsidising the US and UK submarine construction industrial bases is the obvious priority for the Australian government. With massive taxpayer funds flowing through the government’s hands on the basis of media releases, are there yet to be revealed details that will explain to the taxpayer how these contributions aren’t just tributes?
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The new Pericles: Marles, master of the Seas
Australia’s future maritime warfare capability is now to include the ‘Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant Fleet’. Requiring, like the AUKUS submarines, ambitious naval acquisition and construction programs with long lead-times before delivery, serious questions are raised about how the ELSCF responds to assessments of Australia’s strategic circumstances – and of the extent to which it would be just another contribution by Australian taxpayers to US military forces.
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AUKUS: Conroy’s justification of the “greatest industrial undertaking” falls short
Extravagant claims are made about the capability that the proposed AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines will give to Australia. The latest from Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy are particularly puzzling.
Read moreAn Open Letter to the Australian Government from concerned scholars regarding the AUKUS Agreement
An open letter signed by concerned university academics argues that the public case for AUKUS has yet to be made, and calls on the government not to proceed with the development of a nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) capability for Australia until issues raised are addressed.
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All over bar the shouting: the inevitability of a submarine farce
All the signs point to there being no prospect of a sudden upwelling of responsible, considered, and prudent policymaking from Australia’s political class. Without a mature public debate, Australia’s AUKUS submarine farce has been scripted.
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Time to talk about time and the AUKUS submarines
The AUKUS submarines are not expected to get wet until more than 30 years from now, and then to operate until at least the late 21st century. Whatever the government’s thinking is, it cannot centre on a genuine belief that the project addresses Australia’s current pressing strategic needs.
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An AUKUS ménage à trois
The latest teaser from the Australian government is the suggestion that the AUKUS submarines could be a brand new common design delivered via ‘an integrated industrial capacity across the three countries’, with ‘the three countries…building different sections of the submarines’. Alarm bells should be ringing.
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All pathways to AUKUS submarines sub-optimal
AUKUS handed the US largely unfettered military access to Northern Australia. In return, Australia became entangled in an undefined process that may or may not deliver nuclear-powered submarines by mid-century. All roads ahead look hard for this project.
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America’s shiny submarine lure reels in Australia’s sovereignty
Arguably, the Americans have brilliantly played successive Australian governments by casting the shiny lure of nuclear submarines out somewhere in the distant future and reeling in control of Australia’s defence policy.
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Extent of former US officials’ role in AUKUS submarines decision called into question
Abandoning plans to buy French designed conventionally powered submarines in favour of US or UK supplied nuclear powered submarines has come under sustained criticism on the grounds of strategy, cost, and practicality. Now the involvement of former US officials with potential conflicts of interest gives rise to the possibility that the AUKUS submarines decision itself was tainted.
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More than an acronym: AUKUS must be an election issue in 2022
When the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines are delivered, they will be expensive white elephants. And this strategically unsupportable and inordinately expensive project will distort defence policy for a generation.
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Magical thinking: nuclear submarines and Australia’s Maginot Line of the imagination
The prospect of nuclear powered submarines has generated a lot of magical thinking in defence and strategic policy circles. But the incontrovertible fact is that submarines that don’t exist cannot either defend or deter.
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Nuclear-powered submarines are just bad defence policy
Leaving aside the potentially adverse strategic implications of Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine decision, for those who think a submarine capability is important, it is simply bad defence policy. Australian governments are now certain to be bedevilled by submarines for generations.
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‘Bloat and warfare’: the Hunter class frigate and the trend toward ever-more complicated and expensive weapons
Why do weapons platforms keep getting bigger, more complicated, and more costly? In ‘Bloat and Warfare’ Jacob Parakilas makes some interesting observations about Canada’s new frigates, which are, like Australia’s proposed Hunter class frigates, based on the BAE Systems Type 26 frigate design.
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Taiwan to build new fleet of eight domestically-developed submarines in US-backed project
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen has announced on that Taiwan will build a new fleet of submarines aimed at countering China’s military power in the region.
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ASPI’s guide to submarines leaves the biggest strategic questions unanswered
ASPI’s Special Report; submarines, your questions answered aims to “become the go-to guide for authoritative comment on all things to do with the present and future of Australian submarines”. However, rather than clarify the issues around submarine warfare and the Attack class, it raises more questions than it answers. That’s not to deny that there are important contributions in the report from Andrew Davies, Marcus Hellyer, Malcolm Davis, and others.
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Sustaining an undersea advantage: Hudson Institute anti-submarine warfare report
The spotlight is back on Australia’s future submarine program, SEA1000. The Hudson Institute report Sustaining the Undersea Advantage: Disrupting Anti-Submarine Warfare Using Autonomous Systems is an excellent introduction to the history of anti-submarine warfare, and to some recent transformational developments in its conduct. It will help readers understand the long history of undersea warfare and how past experience has made older concepts hard to shift.
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Exaggerated threats and contrived military strategies shouldn’t drive Defence spending: a response to Jon Stanford
In a series of three articles, Jon Stanford has argued that Australia needs “a sound military strategy to deter an attack by a great power and careful analysis of how to design the right force structure to deliver it”. An external, more ‘neutral’ review of Australia’s military strategy is proposed. But it is not clear that Australia needs a new military strategy – let alone one that would require a 50 % increase in the Defence budget.
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The Future of the Undersea Deterrent: A Global Survey
This publication brings together insights of leading international scholars and next-generation expertsto produce a comprehensive and authoritative reference examining the interplay of strategic issues, including nuclear strategy and deterrence; maritime operational issues, including ASW; and technology issues, including new and disruptive technologies and potential game-changers in relation to deterrence.
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