The AUKUS deal between Australia, the UK, and the US was to sell 5 Virginia class nuclear subs to Australia in a trilateral deal. It’s been very controversial in Australia, due to the cost and the degree of difficulty of setting up the logistics. There’s also a big argument about Australia having any nuclear capabilities, and turning those capabilities into targets, etc.
This would cost over $600 billion over a decade or so just to deliver. Australia would have to set up a massive infrastructure on top of that just to manage operational requirements.
Militarily, it makes sense. The Virginias pack a massive punch. Just one of these things could demolish an enemy fleet. They have stealth, range and top-tier combat systems. Five of them could turn the eastern Indian Ocean and the southwestern Pacific into no-go zones for any enemy.
For an island nation with a huge coastline like Australia and four oceans to manage, they would be a major deterrent with teeth and a power projection platform. Apparently, that’s not an issue for anyone but Australia to consider. Bear in mind that this is not a Ukraine-style environment with landlocked ships at the mercy of drones and UAVs. It’s actually a whole new combat environment over millions of square miles of oceans.
So? So, now we’re hearing a lot of alternatives to buying the subs. There are multiple factors involved.
The US Navy is having a hard time keeping up with its own building schedule, upgrades, and new ships coming online or not coming online, depending on your point of view. To be fair, the US Navy is a vast, complex organization at the top of US strategic doctrines. The creation of major new assets is neither simple nor cheap and the Virginias are key components.
The next block of Virginias will be upgrades. They’re more or less at the drawing board stage. Their cost and timing are anyone’s guess. The alternative to selling them to Australia is to base the US Virginias in Australia.
There are various reasons for this option. One is that if the subs are Australian-owned, they may not participate in some conflicts. That is a very real issue, especially now. Under current circumstances, you can make a 100% safe bet that Australia won’t be attacking Canada or Greenland, for example. Nor would we be merrily participating in some specious spat with China for US political purposes.
Five Virginias are also a significant chunk of future US frontline naval combat capacity. You either have that capacity, or you don’t.
This situation leaves the need for Australia to have its own defensive capacity completely unresolved. US military assets are famously never allowed to be under foreign command. It’s unlikely that the new Virginias would be available even for penetration missions under Australian command.
A scaled-down version of AUKUS, say one or two Virginias, with new UK subs, might work. It’d be cheaper all round. The Virginias would be the big stick, the UK Astute subs the skirmishers, pests, and intruders. Logistics would still be very demanding, but nothing like on the huge scale of five Virginias. At least those logistics could be phased in, not built from scratch under god knows what sort of timeframe.
Australia must have operational command, though. You can’t be guessing what your major naval assets might or might not do if someone else agrees.
This needs modelling, not talk. Game it out and see what can and can’t work.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
