{"id":19307,"date":"2015-03-27T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T19:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=19307"},"modified":"2015-03-27T11:06:24","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T00:06:24","slug":"option-j-would-you-like-strategic-benefits-with-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/option-j-would-you-like-strategic-benefits-with-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Option J\u2014would you like strategic benefits with that?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Japan<\/a>There\u2019s a lot of talk about submarines again this week thanks to the SubSummit<\/a> conference in Adelaide. Perhaps not surprisingly given the venue, much of the focus was on the local versus offshore build aspect. That\u2019s all fair enough\u2014we\u2019re talking big dollars here, and the size of the program is such that all of the potential stakeholders have plenty of reasons to make their pitch. That\u2019s a good thing\u2014the more the various options are explained the better informed the discussion can be.<\/p>\n

Clearly the government wants to keep \u2018Option J<\/a>\u2019\u2014a submarine sourced from Japan\u2014open, which is why it settled on its \u2018competitive evaluation process<\/a>\u2019 to allow for the possibility. Otherwise it would simply run a tender process similar to that for the Collins class for the Europeans to compete. The question then becomes how to weigh the positives and negatives of what are quite different options.<\/p>\n

But one of the unfortunate downsides of this debate (in fact most debates) is the tendency to talk down the competition beyond what\u2019s objectively true, thus muddying the waters and detracting from the quality of the discussion. There\u2019s no shortage of criticism of varying quality of Option J out there\u2014in fact it\u2019s hard to find much support. In our new paper released today<\/a>, we take a look at the case for Option J and find that there are indeed some real strategic positives as well as issues of concern.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at the critic\u2019s concerns. They fall into several distinct categories. The first are \u2018strategic concerns<\/a>\u2019, with any or all<\/a> of the following:<\/p>\n