{"id":67316,"date":"2021-09-18T06:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T20:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=67316"},"modified":"2021-09-17T17:26:07","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T07:26:07","slug":"australias-credibility-rests-on-subs-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australias-credibility-rests-on-subs-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s credibility rests on subs success"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

What a difference a day makes. On Wednesday, Australians wouldn\u2019t agree to host storage facilities for low-grade medical nuclear waste anywhere in their states. On Thursday,\u00a0they found out they were going to have nuclear reactors<\/a>\u00a0based in their ports. That shows how much the world has changed.<\/p>\n

In 2015, when Australia went looking for a design for its new submarine fleet it didn\u2019t even consider asking for nuclear-powered boats, and no country would have provided them anyway. Now we have asked, and\u00a0we shall receive them from our US and UK partners<\/a>. We all know that change is being driven by the actions of a\u00a0country that wasn\u2019t named<\/a>\u00a0by any of the three leaders in Thursday\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt that nuclear-powered submarines are far better suited to the kinds of operations Australia conducts in the vast expanses of the Indo-Pacific than the conventional Attack-class submarine the government just cancelled. With virtually unlimited energy providing greater range, endurance and speed, nuclear submarines will have greater lethality and greater survivability. They\u2019ll shape the calculus of any potential adversary across the region, and that\u2019s what deterrence is all about. They\u2019ll certainly give Australia more strategic weight and show the US and others that as an ally Australia is carrying its share of the load.<\/p>\n

On the downside, that greater capability is going to cost even more. Weight is a good proxy for cost in the submarine world and the new boats are much bigger\u2014that\u2019s before we start adding in all the overheads involved in operating nuclear-powered submarines safely and responsibly.<\/p>\n

The government has indicated that it\u2019s willing to cover that cost and Defence won\u2019t have to give up anything from its acquisition plans to find the money. That\u2019s another indication of how the world has changed. The days when we could enjoy unparalleled peace and prosperity for an insurance policy costing a measly 2% of GDP because the US was subsidising our security are gone. We\u2019ve already passed that old benchmark for defence spending, and it looks like we are going to leave it far behind.<\/p>\n

Plus, we\u2019re no closer to having new submarines than we were on Wednesday. In fact, we\u2019re even further away since the government thinks the new plan is going to take several years longer.<\/p>\n

While the government\u2019s defence strategic update last year said we can\u2019t rely on 10 years of warning time for interstate conflict, we are facing around 18 years until we get the first boat and probably over 30 years until we get the eighth. We\u2019re still facing the awkward question of how we\u2019re going to acquire new military capability quickly in an increasingly dangerous decade.<\/p>\n

Eighteen years is a long time. It\u2019s six elections. The Attack class survived one. In the face of spiralling costs and a lethargic schedule, the government couldn\u2019t bring itself to fight in the court of public opinion for it. Parliamentary committee hearings became turgid exercises in haggling over the percentage of Australian industry content in the submarines rather than spirited discussion about defence capability.<\/p>\n

In the end, lacking forceful advocates, the Attack-class program was on borrowed time just waiting until something better came along. The government can\u2019t afford to let that happen to the nuclear submarine program. And future governments, regardless of their political persuasion, can\u2019t let that happen. There\u2019s no time left for a second do over\u2014our current Collins boats will already be around 40 years old when they are replaced under this new plan.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Australia\u2019s credibility can\u2019t survive another change in course on submarines; after first disappointing the Japanese and then\u00a0alienating the French<\/a>, we can\u2019t reject our major ally\u2019s historic offer now we\u2019ve asked and it\u2019s been granted.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Scott Morrison may have felt unwilling to defend a program he\u2019d inherited from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, but the irony (one of many here) is that he is bequeathing to his successors an even bigger program that they will have no choice but to boost and progress. It\u2019s going to be a hard grind over decades.<\/p>\n

In addition to the submarines themselves, he also bequeathed his successors Australia\u2019s foreign policy. That\u2019s what a \u2018forever partnership<\/a>\u2019, in the prime minister\u2019s words, means.<\/p>\n

If there was any doubt about what Australia would do in the event of armed conflict between the US and China over Taiwan or the South China Sea, that\u2019s now gone. The US doesn\u2019t provide you with the crown jewels of its military technology if you are not going to use them when it calls for help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a difference a day makes. On Wednesday, Australians wouldn\u2019t agree to host storage facilities for low-grade medical nuclear waste anywhere in their states. On Thursday,\u00a0they found out they were going to have nuclear reactors\u00a0based …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":767,"featured_media":67266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2436,2047,457],"class_list":["post-67316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-attack-class","tag-australia-us-relations","tag-nuclear-submarines"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAustralia\u2019s credibility rests on subs success | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australias-credibility-rests-on-subs-success\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Australia\u2019s credibility rests on subs success | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What a difference a day makes. 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