Just a few recent AUKUS and AUKUS-adjacent tidbits.
The Australian media has
that a US Congressional Research Service paper on the
Virginia-class program includes language that openly contemplates Washington
not transferring
Virginia-class submarines to Australia, in large part owing to the possibility that we may not actually be prepared to use them against China over Taiwan. This kind of language (and proposed "division of labor" alternative that conveniently leaves Australia with no sovereign capability) has actually been present for some years now, but to be fair it is elaborated in greater depth in this latest revision. Australian government response to this has been to
and to declare that we are all the way with
LBJ DJT.
The Commonwealth and South Australian governments
to build future AUKUS submarines:
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the Commonwealth would make a $3.9 billion "down payment" towards the work at Osborne, with the rest of funding to "flow continuously" over the rest of the shipyard's construction, due to be complete in 2040.
On top of enabling works worth $2 billion, construction has already started on a fabrication area worth $5 billion and a Skills and Training Academy worth $500 million.
The shipyard's developer, Australian Naval Infrastructure (ANI), a company owned by the federal government, estimated the next stage, an outfitting area, would cost $8 billion to build, while an area for consolidation, testing, launching and commission would cost more than $15 billion.
The state government estimated at least 4,000 workers would design and build the submarine construction yard, while 5,500 workers would support nuclear-powered submarine production at its peak.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, under whom the previous
Attack-class deal with France was negotiated, has long declared that AUKUS is the road to Australia having no submarine capability. Implicit in this claim is the notion that the program to extend the life of each of the six existing
Collins-class submarines by another decade is going to fail spectacularly.
Given the public admissions to date ("high risk"), apparent vacillations over just what this life-extension program will encompass -- vacillations apparently driven by the need to adhere to a 2-year drumbeat for each boat -- and the fairly dismal record of similar recent life-extension projects abroad (Ticonderoga, Type 23), that the Collins LOTE may not go well has always seemed rather plausible. Despite the Collins LOTE ostensibly kicking off
, updates have been increasingly thin on the ground.
ASC’s acting chief executive Alex Walsh said the scope and planned duration of the refits was yet to be finalised and would be heavily influenced by “the material condition” of the first boat, HMAS Farncomb, when it was removed from the water later this year.
“We have received the advanced planning letter from the commonwealth with their aspirations of the work that they would like to see done,” Mr Walsh told a Senate Estimates hearing under questioning by Greens’ senator David Shoebridge.
“We have responded with what the impacts would be on the schedule and the scope, and now we’re in the process with the commonwealth of that discussion around what scope will actually be executed and therefore the schedule.”
The scale and timing of the works will have a direct bearing on whether the government can maintain a submarine capability while it works to acquire nuclear boats under its so-called “optimal pathway”.
Asked whether the upgrades were still expected to take two years per boat, Mr Walsh said: “That very much depends on the decisions made by the commonwealth around the scope which we actually conduct.”
He said ASC was still in discussions with the government on the issue, and the timetable could also be adjusted to ensure sufficient submarine availability.
Asked whether the LOTE program was achievable amid widespread concern over the engineering challenges of working on 30-year-old submarines, Mr Walsh replied: “Yes.”
Well, I'm reassured. Aren't you reassured? Everything is going to be just fine. After all, Richard Marles and Anthony Albanese have declared that we are on the "optimal pathway". For a proposal that has been kicking around in one form or another for around a decade now, negotiating the scope and schedule of life-extension work and relation to future submarine availability mere
months before the first boat comes out of the water sounds very optimal to me.
P.S. Australia currently has six
Collins-class boats, that replaced six
Oberon-class boats. Prior to AUKUS, the plan was to expand the inventory to twelve SSKs, since cut back to "at least eight" nuclear-powered submarines. I've been wondering how closely Hugh White was tied to that earlier expansion of Australia's ambitions. The future inventory goal of 12 SSKs was first officially articulated in the 2009 Defence White Paper (one can think of this as Australian equivalent of US Quadrennial Defense Review), but the first public articulation of that number I can find from a relevant figure is from former defence minister and former leader of the opposition Kim Beazley, in
(just after Labor had assumed government, though under Kevin Rudd rather than Kim Beazley). Hugh White is widely credited as the lead author of the previous 2000 Defence White Paper, but had been out of government for some years by the time all this rolled around, mostly kicking around as inaugural Director of the newborn ASPI. Yet in a previous age, White had been an advisor to... Kim Beazley. In his subsequent public writings, White has consistently advocated for the considerable expansion of Australia's submarine inventory (he envisions 18-24 "modest" SSKs) at the cost of surface combatants. It seems likely that at least the Ghost of Hugh White was "in the room" when these first tentative post-
Collins steps were contemplated. Relatedly,
2020 article from Graeme Dobell provides a good account of the post-
Collins, pre-AUKUS machinations. That we did not go on to build a "Son of Collins" some years ago stands out as a sliding doors moment for the nation.
