Underway on Nuclear Power - AUKUS and Australian Nuclear Submarines

 

The Royal Australian Navy is likely to become the next nation to join the nuclear submarine operators club. This is the key headline emerging from the surprise tri-lateral announcement on Wed 15 September by the Prime Ministers of Australia and the UK, and the President of the United States.

The move, forming a new ‘three eyes’ club known as AUKUS is a genuinely significant development intended to provide a significant uplift in capability in the Indo-Pacific region. For the first time in nearly 70 years, the US has agreed to share some of its most sensitive technology with a third party, to help Australia become a ‘naval power underway on nuclear power’.

There are several ramifications of this decision, that will be felt for many years to come. The first is that from an American perspective, this is a good opportunity to take steps to increase burden sharing in the Pacific.

Arguably for many years the US and Royal Navies have carried out a similar level of burden sharing when it comes to nuclear submarine operations in the Atlantic. There is an extremely close link between the two services, who have worked together in some of the most challenging ocean environments for many decades.

Adding the RAN in as a partner in the Pacific will help burden share further, potentially creating a similar sized force to the RN to help reduce the pressure on the US Pacific Fleet submarine force. This can only be a good thing in the medium term.

For the UK it is a good chance to help solidify its claim to being reengaged in the Indo-Pacific region again – a key part of the Integrated Review. By forming alliances such as this, which will require long term investment and commitment, the UK is helping make a clear statement of intent about its involvement in the region.

This will help drive the case for a sustained presence by UK military forces in the area for many years to come, and for wider naval deployments. The need to build capacity in the RAN as it prepares for nuclear operations will potentially drive deployments by the UK with its own forces out to the region in preference to other locations.

Similarly, this willingness to join the alliance shows that the UK is likely prepared to continue to deploy surface naval units in large numbers – the CSG21 deployment could well be a taste of things to come, with regular deployments of very capable platforms into the region.

It is not difficult to see the case emerging for the UK to make to the US about how it adds value to the alliance. The sense is emerging of a UK offer to the US which is essentially being that of an ally who adds critical value and shares burdens in the Gulf for mine warfare, in the Indo-Pacific through the provision of a much needed carrier deck capable of embarking USMC and in NATO by being a leading power within the Alliance, supportive of US goals.

For Australia the opportunity is significant – it represents a chance to gain access to some incredibly capable military technology and pose a substantial deterrent threat to other nations. Much like the presence of UK and US SSBN’s on patrol functions as a challenging deterrent to those who would threaten NATO, due to the uncertainty of how different nations will respond to attacks, so too does the acquisition of a new SSN force.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

Any aggressor will need to factor in both the rise in overall numbers of attack submarines, and consider how they may be deployed differently. For example, a RAN SSN capability significantly benefits members of the Five Power Defence Agreement, as now two of the five members will possess this,  meaning that Singapore and Malaysia will not be dependent on the UK alone in this respect. Anyone considering a challenge to an FPDA member will need to factor in how to tackle a local SSN force that could be committed to defending against maritime invasion.

There is too an opportunity to step up and expand Australias role as “America’s Best Mate” in the region. As Australian military capability continues to grow, the narrow distinction between the UK and Australia as a partner to the US weakens, with both nations now bringing SSN’s to the party within the next decade or two.

For Australia there is a chance here to position itself as a pro-US ally, capable of supporting the US in every sphere of operations other than nuclear weapon deployment, and supported by an extremely capable intelligence and diplomatic service. In practical terms the Australians are rapidly emerging as a serious ‘peer ally’ to the UK in terms of their value to and access with the US, and if the shift to the Pacific continues, then Australia may find itself increasingly emerging as Washington’s key ‘allied capital to call first’.

There are challenges though to delivering this vision. Firstly, nuclear submarines are extremely expensive and need heavy investment to build and deliver – the challenge Australia will face is working out a strategy that finds sufficient skilled workers to build them, and put the supporting infrastructure in place.

It may be a challenging task, particularly at a time when there is already an extremely ambitious naval construction programme underway in Australia with the Type 26 frigate. Additionally, this is going to need to be an open ended building programme – as the UK and US have found, shutting down construction yards for nuclear submarine construction makes for a very expensive experience when you need to reopen it.

If Australia is serious about becoming, and remaining, a nuclear navy, then it will need to think carefully about building timescales, and essentially always having an SSN in the construction plan to prevent the yards closing. Once closed, the cost to reopen is astronomical – but this in turn may pose significant challenges for the Australian defence budget.

A wider challenge will be putting the infrastructure in place for berthing and supporting these vessels, which will be expensive and require major changes. It will also need a significant retraining and skills uplift in the navy and its support staff to ensure that they can maintain and support these vessels.

The challenge will be in both finding and training these staff, and also potentially handling the nationality restrictions imposed on access to nuclear material. As a nation built on immigrants, it may prove challenging to find the right blend of people who can satisfy the security vetting criteria that they can have access to the highly sensitive nuclear areas and work.

Finding enough crew will also be hard – the Australians have long staffed their military through both local recruitment and the encouraging of former UK (and other) nationals to join for a second career – they are hard worked for a few years, then retire on a good salary and citizenship. The pool of nuclear submariners is small though, so the first challenge is finding them locally, then not poaching too many from the UK or US, a move which may cause tensions if too many British submariners were to ‘jump ship’ to join the RAN.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

Finally there is a wider issue of keeping the focus to ensure this project is delivered – realistically this is a 10-20 year project to acquire and build sufficient nuclear submarines to provide a credible capability. Having the focus, resources and political desire to do this, even as the bills mount up and opposition grows is going to be a challenge. Hopefully it happens, but it may not. There is always a slim chance that billions will be spent, and that the Australians will have nothing to show for it (perhaps they should follow the UK example and call the SSN’s the ‘AJAX’ class?)

From a wider diplomatic perspective, there are three distinct groupings to consider. Firstly, the remaining 5-EYES members (Canada and New Zealand). Its unlikely that this will do much damage to 5-EYES – for example New Zealand would never have been approached as the acquisition of a nuclear submarine would be vastly beyond the budget, or needs, of the small but incredibly professional Royal New Zealand Navy.

Canada may be feeling slightly raw about this – particularly those with long memories who recall the 1980s and the doomed plan to acquire nuclear submarines for the RCN. But who knows, in terms of timelines these vessels may be entering service in the same timeframe as Canada seeks to replace the UPHOLDER/VICTORIA class – it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they may seek to join in later on.

Given 5-EYEs is more than just an Indo-Pacific focus, it would be wrong to read much into this as a statement on the future of that Alliance. Rather it is better to see this as a subgrouping of a very successful international alliance.

The French will rightly be extremely cross about this – it is rare for the French defence industry to suffer such spectacular knockbacks in this way. They have a track record of building good capable equipment to a global range of customers, and they win business for good reasons.

While it may be amusing to snigger here, that isn’t actually terribly helpful. The French are not only an extremely professional military, but they also have a wide range of strategic interests and territories in the region, and are keen to build a strong defence relationship with Australia and other partners with like-minded interests.

The prize here is perhaps that with the UK seeking re-engagement in the region there is a chance for renewed European interest and co-operation in this space. The trick is to build links that work, as who knows when it may be valuable for the French to co-operate with AUKUS?

Finally the response of other nations is interesting. Some, like China are concerned, seeing this as a threat. This is perhaps ironic given the incredibly aggressive and highly expansionist growth of the PLA in recent years, coupled with an attitude to international law best summed up as “I saw it, I want it, I keep it”.

This announcement represents yet another hardening of attitudes and the building of a narrative between western democratic powers on the one hand, and those who see these alliances as a threat. There will probably be relief in many regional capitals about this decision as it shows a renewed commitment by serious military powers to presence and operations in the region as a deterrent against aggression by third parties.

To those who see this as proliferation of nuclear technology, it may be worth remembering that the UK and US are not the first nations to work to provide nuclear technology to a third party. Arguably that honour goes to the Russians, who provided nuclear submarines to India many years ago and helped them secure this capability. The UK and US are merely following in the footsteps of other actors in their actions.

Overall this is a fascinating development, and one that will shape geopolitical discussion in the region for a long time to come. Much to consider, much to digest and a good reminder that Australia will continue to be full of extremely deadly things that can kill you with ease…