Australia will modify an existing submarine design when it acquires nuclear propulsion under the new AUKUS trilateral partnership with the United Kingdom and the U.S., Canberra’s ambassador to the states said in a virtual presentation Tuesday.
“We didn’t want to spend years playing around with a design and so with our American and English partners, we’re going to get through that process of working it out,” Arthur Sinodinos, Australia’s ambassador in Washington, said during an online presentation hosted by the D.C.-based Hudson Institute.
The AUKUS partners have given themselves 18 months to work out the technology transfer issues involved, “and we’re hoping to do it as quickly as possible to not have to use the full 18 months to determine what is the best design for Australia,” Sinodinos said. “And the Prime Minister’s being very clear and he was very clear to me when he was here that we had to build to an existing design.”
In September Australian, the U.K. and the U.S. announced the AUKUS partnership to help Australia procure new nuclear-powered attack submarines to replace its current fleet of six Collins-class diesel-electric boats. That also means Australia planned to cancel a pre-existing $90 billion program to replace its Collins fleet with 12 conventionally powered submarines designed by France’s Naval Group.
“[W]e want to be able to — in this deteriorating strategic circumstances — be able to project our power further up rather than taking an approach that all our defense has to be defense of the mainland.”
Sinidinos said Australia has already conducted due diligence that satisfied the U.S. “that we could be trusted with the nuclear technology we’re talking about, but now we’re putting together the practical bits and pieces which actually mean that stewardship is available and then means we’re in a position to start acquiring submarines.”
The boats will notionally be built in the Australian state of South Australia, Sinodinos said Tuesday.
In October, Gen. Sir Nicholas Carter, the U.K.’s top uniformed officer, characterized AUKUS as one of several “relatively ad hoc groupings” of “like-minded countries” necessary in the Kingdom’s eyes to militarily check Russia and China. Also, Carter said, AUKUS “is not designed in any way to be exclusive.”
Exchange Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily contributed to this report from Washington.
