Australia is set to within a couple of weeks learn some basic details about a program that could cost more than $170bn and will run for decades.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, this week warned against opting for a new UK design. For now though, the Aukus submarine program is a “black box”, says Tom Corben, a foreign policy and defence research fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre.
“We’re just speculating until we get the announcement,” he says, adding that the secret has been very well kept, considering the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is set to go to the US to announce it in March.
And that speculation is running almost as hot as it was in 2016, when France, Germany and Japan were competing to build a replacement for Australia’s ageing Collins class fleet.
France won, then lost in 2021 when the then prime minister, Scott Morrison, scuppered the plan to buy 12 of their conventional Attack class submarines in favour of the Aukus plan for “at least” eight nuclear-powered submarines.
The conversation, when it started, was about whether Australia would buy a US or a UK boat. Both of their existing offerings are bigger than the Collins class, and require a bigger crew. Both of their nuclear reactors are designed to last the life of the boat, which can stay submerged until food or the crew’s patience runs out.
But both countries are also already working on their next-generation submarines.
The US is currently building 19 Virginia class submarines (known as SSNs, the US classification code for nuclear-powered attack submarines – as opposed to SSBNs, which are nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines).
These are more than 140m long and require a crew of 132. They displace (or weigh) more than 10,000 tonnes and carry Tomahawk cruise missiles.
From the mid 2030s, the Virginia class will be replaced with the next-generation SSN(X). That “X” means the design hasn’t been finalised yet. The US navy has described it as an “apex predator” that will be faster, stealthier, and bristling with more weapons.
The UK’s Astute class also carry Tomahawk cruise missiles, which allow the submarine to hit targets 1,000kms away and send back images of the battlefield. It also has Spearfish torpedos designed to destroy enemy submarines.
It has a crew of about 100, is almost 100m long and has displacement of 16,000 tonnes.
The UK, too, is thinking about the next generation. The SSN(R), which is still being designed, will replace the Astutes.
In times of increasing uncertainty, the Aukus nations are looking for more capability. But the technical specifications are only part of the decision-making process for Australia, which is facing a capability gap as the Collins is set to retire before any new submarines are likely to be available.
These are not submarines that can be plucked “off the shelf” from some global supermarket. The newer ones, still in the design phase, are years away from even starting trials. The older ones are desperately needed by their own navies.
And the timelines are stretching out into the 2040s, leaving experts worried about how Australia will fill its capability gap.
The US industrial base is almost overwhelmed constructing its own submarine fleets and there have been warnings that it could not stretch to helping Australia as well.
“The bottom line is that the US is not going to build the subs on its own,” Corben says.
That reinforces the idea that the endeavour will be split between the three nations.
“I would have expected a US combat system to be part of this new submarine as a baseline assumption,” he says. “The real question is where the primary frame construction takes place. Some of that could conceivably happen in Australia if our shipbuilding capabilities are brought up to speed and capacity.”
Increasingly the UK and Australian ministers have been hinting at a trilateral design, director of the Lowy Institute’s international security program, Sam Roggeveen, says.
“The open question in my mind is whether that’s some version of the SSN(X) or SSN(R) or is it a new thing altogether,” he says.
A totally new design would set off warning lights, he says, pointing to the problems Australia has had with Sea Sprite helicopters, the Collins class and the Attack class.
“We’ve been down the road before of buying highly bespoke capabilities for our forces, which no one else has and it’s ended in disaster.”
“It’s a price thing … it’s riskier as well because you’re doing something that hasn’t been done before.”
Dutton, the former Coalition defence minister, used a series of media conferences and interviews this week to fire a pre-emptive warning shot against going for a new UK design. He said he believed the US Virginia class was the best choice for Australia because it was least risky and could be ready soonest.
“I worry that if the government has taken a decision to go for a cheaper design that it will delay the delivery of those submarines,” Dutton said on Wednesday.
The Labor government rebuked Dutton for his “irresponsible” public interventions – saying he was basing his views on out-of-date advice – and said it was important that Aukus remain a bipartisan endeavour. Despite airing those misgivings, Dutton promised to support the government’s eventual decision.
Submarine analyst and past president of the Submarine Institute of Australia, rear admiral (ret’d) Peter Briggs, says the SSN(R) is the frontrunner.
The SSN(X) will be too big, he says. “The bigger it is, the more crew it carries and the more expensive it is to own.”
Briggs points to the government’s emphasis on “at least” eight boats.
“We’re a two-ocean country and we need six on each coast,” he says.
“From six you have two ready to go at any time.” That’s the law of three, he says. At any point you have one out, one getting ready to go out, and one being serviced after having been out.
Building 12 boats, he says, would make us an important enough customer that we could influence the design and perhaps restrict its size – the Collins class has a displacement of less than 3,500 tonnes and a crew of about 50.
After Albanese announces where the new submarine will come from, some of the more difficult questions will need to be answered – about where the workforce will come from, whether everyone will willingly and easily share their technology, whether a hybrid build risks Australia’s sovereign control and – importantly – when the submarines will actually be ready.
