{"id":86701,"date":"2024-04-30T14:46:44","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T04:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=86701"},"modified":"2024-04-30T14:52:55","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T04:52:55","slug":"start-thinking-now-about-alternatives-to-aukus-pillar-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/start-thinking-now-about-alternatives-to-aukus-pillar-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Start thinking now about alternatives to AUKUS Pillar 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The program to equip the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear submarines is in trouble. The takeaway: Australia must begin thinking now about what to do to avoid program failure.<\/p>\n

Why has this situation arisen? First, the prospective program costs are enormous and have been badly underestimated. Second, industrial capacity is inadequate for the tasks of building and supporting a nuclear fleet. Third, the program lacks a powerful leader and an effective management plan to drive it forward.<\/p>\n

And, strategically, the planned force of eight nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) armed with only conventional weapons would have minimal deterrent value on Chinese perceptions.<\/p>\n

Building the submarines is Pillar 1 of AUKUS<\/a>, the security partnership of Australia, Britain and the United States. Pillar 2 consists of other technology exchanges among them.\u00a0It is in Pillar 2 that AUKUS may prove itself.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0United States<\/a> is to supply three Virginia-class SSNs to Australia\u2014two from the US fleet, which will have to be topped up with newly built vessels, and one straight from a shipyard. Australia has the option to seek to acquire a fourth and fifth Virginia. Britain<\/a> is to design, in coordination with its partners, a new class, SSN-AUKUS, for the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. The Australians are due to build units of that class to reach a total fleet of eight SSNs by the mid-2050s .<\/p>\n

But here is the first constraint. How long does it take to build a new Virginia-class submarine?\u00a0According to the\u00a0Congressional Budget Office<\/a>, the answer is\u00a0nine\u00a0<\/a>years, due to supply chain limitations.\u00a0Huntington-Ingalls Industries (HII<\/a>) in Newport News, Virginia, cannot now build\u00a0enough<\/a>\u00a0SSNs for the US Navy.\u00a0How will it find capacity to build even more to cover acquisitions by Australia?<\/p>\n

As well as\u00a0competing\u00a0<\/a>for nuclear talent with General Dynamics, which is constructing the Navy\u2019s top-priority\u00a0Columbia<\/a>-class nuclear ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs), HII is building nuclear aircraft carriers.\u00a0Delays to delivery of the carrier USS Enterprise illustrate the lack of skilled workers for all the required nuclear construction.\u00a0And the question of huge cost overruns in the Australian SSN program may not have been fully considered.<\/p>\n

The first Columbia class boat will\u00a0cost<\/a>\u00a0about $20 billion.\u00a0Follow-ons are estimated at lower costs.\u00a0However, the entire nuclear infrastructure is inordinately expensive.\u00a0Australia must start from scratch.\u00a0And, as Britain will rediscover, a new SSN class is almost certain to experience large cost overruns.<\/p>\n

Maintenance, repairs, logistics, training and recruiting to maintain a nuclear navy are not cheap.\u00a0While Australia will benefit from using US and British facilities, that will not significantly offset the costs. Plans to deal with these and other challenges are not fully mature.<\/p>\n

The question of who is in overall charge is difficult to answer.\u00a0There is no czar like Admiral Hyman\u00a0Rickover<\/a>, who ruled the US nuclear submarine program for decades with absolute authority.\u00a0Nor is there a Vice Admiral William (\u2018Red\u2019) Raborn<\/a>, who did the same for the US Polaris SSBN program.<\/p>\n

It is unclear that these obstacles have been fully digested in an overall plan for completing AUKUS Pillar 1. One practical outcome could be\u2014and emphasis is on \u2018could be\u2019\u2014the US selling one or two more older Virginias to Australia as an option.<\/p>\n

Those who are more optimistic should think about Skybolt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the early 1960s, the US was contracted to build an air-launched ballistic missile as the centerpiece of Britain\u2019s strategic nuclear deterrent.\u00a0But the concept proved too difficult to engineer, and Skybolt was cancelled, leaving Britain scrambling to find a new way of sustaining its deterrent.\u00a0Will AUKUS suffer the same fate?<\/p>\n

Where AUKUS is invaluable however is in Pillar 2 and the technology exchanges that it covers. If managed and executed correctly, the leverage here is potentially enormous.\u00a0However, matters of intellectual property, classification and trust are critical.\u00a0Once these other issues are resolved, adding Canada and New Zealand (the two other Five Eyes members)\u00a0as well as Asian partners may be wise.<\/p>\n

What needs to be done? Without casting fundamental doubts on AUKUS, discrete thinking must start now to address these potentially program-killing issues.\u00a0A Plan B that raises alternatives must be developed.\u00a0These must include, if China is indeed perceived as a possibly existential threat, the option of Australian nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Ironically, in retrospect, a better choice may have been building diesel submarines with long-range strike missiles and air-independent propulsion for extended underwater loitering. But that is no longer re-negotiable.<\/p>\n

The crucial question is this: what impact will eight nuclear submarines, if they can be built and delivered, have on China? Unless nuclear weapons are to be carried, the effect will not be significant.\u00a0And huge impediments threaten development and construction of the nuclear boats.<\/p>\n

What is needed now is a plan to save as much of Pillar 1 of AUKUS as possible and to save Pillar 2 at all costs. This is a grim situation that must be confronted now. Otherwise, the spectre of another Skybolt disaster looms large.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The program to equip the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear submarines is in trouble. The takeaway: Australia must begin thinking now about what to do to avoid program failure. Why has this situation arisen? First, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1965,"featured_media":86703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,790,52,457,356,114,1704,31,289],"class_list":["post-86701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-britain","tag-china","tag-nuclear-submarines","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-ran","tag-royal-navy","tag-united-states","tag-us-navy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStart thinking now about alternatives to AUKUS Pillar 1 | 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\/start-thinking-now-about-alternatives-to-aukus-pillar-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Start thinking now about alternatives to AUKUS Pillar 1 | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The program to equip the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear submarines is in trouble. 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