A Royal Australian Navy Collins-class submarine at periscope depth. Photo: US Navy via ADF.
There’s little doubt that the AUKUS construct between Australia, the UK and the US to share nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) technology and jointly develop a raft of other advanced military capabilities has polarised many commentators and observers in Australia.
AUKUS is made up of two key Pillars, each of which has multiple elements within it.
Pillar 1 will see the development of an SSN support facility in Western Australia, and the growth of an Australian workforce capable of operating and sustaining SSNs in-country as well as increasing numbers of US Navy and Royal Navy SSNs under the multinational Submarine Rotational Force – West (SRF-West) from 2027.
It also covers the development of a nuclear stewardship capability to allow the safe and secure operation of nuclear technology and waste disposal, and the establishment of a dedicated SSN construction facility at Adelaide’s Osborne Shipyard.
Pillar 1 will also see the transfer of between three and five US Navy Virginia-class SSNs to Australia from 2032, and the cooperative development by all three countries of a new class of SSN to be built in Australia and the UK for service entry in the 2040s.
Pillar 2 is focused on the development and transfer of advanced military capabilities and technologies such as artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, undersea surveillance, cyber and quantum technologies, hypersonics and counter-hypersonic systems, and electronic warfare capabilities, and may one day be expanded beyond the original three partner nations.
But it is Pillar 1 that has stirred up the most controversy due to its cost – estimated to be more than $350 billion – and ongoing doubts over whether a major part of it can actually be delivered.
Notwithstanding the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency and the associated chaos and uncertainty surrounding global trade and previously reliable alliances that has raised, the US is currently falling way short of the production schedule it needs to achieve to have any SSNs available for Australia.
The US Navy is currently retiring its ageing Los Angeles-class SSNs faster than their replacement Virginia-class SSNs can be commissioned. It was revealed two years ago that the two US shipyards that build SSNs needed to be pumping out an average of 2.3 boats a year in order to meet the US Navy’s requirements but, as of 2024, that number remained stagnant at a rate of just 1.2.
A partial solution to boost the build rate was for Australia to invest some $US3bn ($A5bn) into the US industrial base to bolster the workforce and supply chains there as part of Pillar 1. The first payment of $US500m ($A834m) was handed over in early February this year when Defence Minister Richard Marles visited his US counterpart Pete Hegseth in Washington, DC, and additional payments are scheduled to follow this year.
Concept art of the next-generation AUKUS-SSN planned for the UK’s Royal Navy and the RAN. Image: ADF.
Asked whether he had received any assurances about the first Virginias being delivered on time, Mr Marles told media that, while both sides agreed that it needed to happen, he acknowledged there were “challenges in terms of the rate of production and sustainment of submarines in the US”.
A February 2025 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report highlights continuing shortcomings in the coordination and effectiveness of the sums being invested in the US submarine industrial base, including those by Australia, while the original language of the AUKUS agreement mandated that the transfer of in-service submarines and production of new boats to Australia must not result in a detrimental force posture for the US Navy.
In the meantime, the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN’s) six much smaller, conventionally powered Collins-class submarines – the youngest commissioned 20 years ago – continue to experience poor availability. So much so that the Collins program returned to the Government’s Projects of Concern list in December after their sustainment was called into question.
A badly needed Life of Type Extension (LOTE) program that was required to see the Collins boats through to the late 2030s has also been scaled back in scope, and is still not scheduled to even begin on the first boat until 2026, leading to questions about the Collins’ viability going forward.
I always thought the acquisition of used Virginia-class SSNs was a strange decision, one that just added layers of complexity and risk into what could otherwise have been a more realistic ambition of operating SSNs in the 2040s.
The stagnant US industrial base continues to show few signs of life, and the Collins boats look increasingly less likely to make their planned extended life-of-type.
So, perhaps now is the time to buy an interim conventionally powered submarine that could ably replace the Collins and meet our strategic defence requirements in the short-to-medium term, while the next generation of nuclear-qualified submariners and engineers continues to build up through exchange programs with the US and UK and through the SRF-West initiative.
Four countries build modern conventional submarines that could ably meet an interim capability – Mitsubishi from Japan with the Taigei class, Germany’s TKMS with its 212 and larger 214 and 218 boats, South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean and its KSS-III, and Sweden’s Saab Kockums, which builds the A19 and the new A26.
All of these diesel-electric submarines (SSK) are modern and capable and, depending on the type chosen, a fleet of six to eight of these boats could be acquired comparatively quickly without the need for an expensive and time-consuming Collins LOTE.
More importantly, they would also give Australia a credible organic defence capability when combined with US and UK SSNs deployed to the region, while providing a more realistic schedule to achieve our own nuclear-powered submarine capability.
Original Article published by Andrew McLaughlin on PS News.
