A think tank has called the AUKUS Pillar One nuclear-propelled submarine project “overly ambitious” and says it could weaken Australia’s ability to deal with “security threats that may not involve armed conflict,” such as pandemics.
In a submission to the Senate Committee considering the trilateral AUKUS treaty between Australia, the United States, and UK, the Australia Institute outlined several concerns with the pact, and said there was a “lack of analysis and evidence in support of the AUKUS.”
The AUKUS deal with revealed in September 2021 and aimed to formalise several existing defence arrangements between the three English-speaking allies, as well as in new areas such as quantum technology, hypersonics, and undersea drones.
However, the centrepiece of AUKUS is the decision to arm the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear-powered submarines—a decision aimed at making Australia the seventh country in the world to deploy the weapon.
‘Overly Ambitious’: Think Tank
The Australia Institute, however, warned the estimated cost of AUKUS, at $368 billion, was unsubstantiated and could, based on previous experience, be three times greater.“AUKUS is an overly ambitious approach to a specific defence capability (submarines) that exceeds our defence needs, distorts the national force structure, weakens our overall posture, and entails opportunity costs that impact on the longer-term well-being of the Australian community,” the group’s submission says.
Events and statements to date had amounted to “political theatre” without “domestic discussion of the factors necessitating a nuclear capability and some authoritative indication of how we might deliver it without total dependence on allies.”
The submission also doubts whether the three nations can produce the submarines, calling the AUKUS implementation approach “barely a pathway and less than optimal.”
“There is little evidence to support the confidence with which ministers and officials claim that the construction of submarines is within Australia’s technical capabilities and that the numbers of skilled submarine construction workers are available,” the Institute says.
“From conception to completion [the Collins submarine programme] took less than two decades. By way of comparison, the UK Astute program has yet to be completed, 40 years after it was conceived,” it points out.
“The Collins submarines, with their operational focus on Australia’s northern approaches, were fit for purpose. They were well-designed and well-constructed. While technologically different from U.S. submarines, interoperability between the two navies afforded options in joint operations that were unavailable to nuclear submarines designed as hunter/killer submarines.”
The agreed submarine design that Australia will adopt is the yet-to-be-developed SSN-AUKUS that will also replace the UK’s current Astute-class submarine. However, before the acquisition of the new submarines, the Australia is also committed to purchasing U.S. Virginia-class submarines.
“Interoperability, a core operational objective for decades, has been replaced by the significantly more comprehensive term interchangeability, and to judge from the remarks of the director of the US Naval Propulsion Program, integration is the next step,” the Institute predicts, noting that Australians will eventually make up 10 percent of crews on U.S.-flagged Virginia-class submarines.
Nuclear Waste Concern
The submission says storing and disposing of the nuclear materials used in the submarines’ engines is another unaddressed issue.“There is a level of complexity in military reactor operation and management with which Australia is totally unfamiliar. The demand on both the ADF and civilian sector technical skills will be significant in terms of skills acquisition, certification, and technical currency. There is no indication yet that ... serious planning is underway to generate the educational capacity needed for the task.”
The Institute says “there are as yet no standard methods for high-level military nuclear waste management. Many decommissioned reactors are sitting alongside in ports, quietly rusting away and awaiting disposal.
“There are relatively low volumes of high-level radioactive waste. This will change dramatically when the submarines that Australia might acquire reach the end of their operational life.”
The Institute urges the Committee to alert Parliament to what it says are concerns among serving Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel that the funding required by the AUKUS commitment may “erode [existing] capabilities” in other parts of the country’s defence infrastructure and recommend to the government that it “renegotiate the agreement to provide adequate safeguards that protect its agency and decision-making and that of successive governments.”
The submission comes as the Congressional Research Service argues AUKUS could be altered so that Australia does not buy U.S. Virginia-class submarines, and instead, have U.S. vessels operate out of Australia.
“An alternative to Pillar 1 as currently structured would be a U.S.-Australia military division of labour under which U.S. SSNs would perform both U.S. and Australian SSN missions while Australia invested in military capabilities for performing non-SSN missions for both Australia and the United States,” the report said.
“Australia, instead of using funds to purchase, build, operate, and maintain its own SSNs, would instead invest those funds in other military capabilities—such as, for example, long-range anti-ship missiles, drones, loitering munitions, B-21 long-range bombers, or other long-range strike aircraft,” the report added.
