The Hand-Me-Down Alliance: Australia, AUKUS and Op-Shop Submarines

One can never accuse the Australian political palette of being too demanding, let alone attentive. When it comes to matters of defence, that palette is happy to be deceived, remaining credulous to the notion it is sensitive to good taste and observant of flavours. When it comes to alliances, this especially so. As for the AUKUS agreement, it was clear that the Australian establishment was simply incapable of tasting anything in the way of the rancid or putrid. Of the three participating countries in this doomed ménage à trois – the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia – it was the last of the trio that has been left providing the most while receiving the least.

Centred on two pillars of poor understanding and unequal exchange, the AUKUS agreement is mouldering in unenviable disgrace. The first pillar envisages (dare on use the current tense?) the purchase of SSNs (nuclear-powered submarines) of the Virginia-Class from the United States that may run into three boats, possibly even two additional ones. According to the fatuous and vacuous Australian Submarine Agency’s assessment, the “acquisition will eliminate any capability gap and increase the 3 nations [sic] (Australia, UK and US) ability to deter aggression and contribute to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.” Eventually, the SSN-AUKUS, a hybrid of UK design, US technology and Australian gristle, will also be added to the fleet, a prospect bound to give few joy.

But the docile and the doltish in Canberra do not seem alert to the grumbling mood in Washington that any transfer of these hulks would only take place on exclusive American terms. Doubt about Australian worthiness in using such boats in a war with China if called upon (call it want of skill, call it reluctance); and doubts about the rate of production back home (the annual rate of two Virginia SSNs remains tardily elusive), has made the very idea of conveying such vessels to Canberra improbable.

The latest discussions by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles and UK Defence Secretary John Healey, held on the sidelines of the International Institute of Strategic Studies Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, also confirms that the boats, should they ever arrive, will be of the optional, rather than optimal shop variety. They will be second hand goods with a shorter life span and less troubling to let go of by the US Navy. Give the Aussies the hand-me-downs. They’re worth it.

A May 30 joint statement from the ministers was a tedious, tortuous garble that did little to hide the fact that Australia has been degraded and sent packing to the cooler. “The Deputy Prime Minister and Secretaries welcomed the proposed approach to streamline Australia’s acquisition of Virginia-class submarines (VCS), simplifying chain management, operational and maintenance requirements and maximizing cost efficiencies. This approach would enable Australia to acquire three in-service VCs in lieu of a mixture of new and in-service VSs variants.” Without a smidgen to go on, the trio also claimed that “significant progress in the design and delivery of SSN-AUKUS, which will provide the UK and Australia with an advanced warfighting capability” had been made.

It is worth recounting the stages of cloddishness that culminated at this current pass. In 2023, the Australian government accepted the position that the US would sell it three Virginia-class boats in the early 2030s, with the following observation: “The first two will be used but refurbished Block 4 boats with 23 years of remaining life and the third will be a brand new stretched Block 6 boat fitted with the 84-foot-long payload of greatly increased weapons loads.”

Instead of expressing rage and disgust at this diminution of worth, the Australian defence minister has accepted the revised plans with beaming, coprophagic glee. Appended to the stained grin are explanations worthy of immediate sinking. Not having three second-hand SSNs would have seen a situation of one new Virginia-class SSN operating alongside in-service Collins-class submarines and the new SSN-AUKUS boats. This unpardonably dreamy nonsense, anticipating that all three boat varieties would be sharing the sea at the same time, at least allowed Marles to yearn for a simpler world of equipment. The word “simple,” it would seem, is his favourite word of the moment. In remarks to reporters, he observed that a “simpler pathway” had presented itself. “It will mean that the Virginia-class submarine that we are acquiring will be all of the same type of. And I cannot overstate the significance of that, both in terms of the submariners who are operating them, but also the people who are working on them to sustain those submarines.”

In Australia, the opposition defence minister, James Patterson, had least had the decency to demand “a proper explanation from the government – more than just a single sentence in a joint statement.” The Greens Senator David Shoebridge, was less accommodating to the servile capitulation from Marles. “We’re not just over a barrel with the United States – we have literally said to them they can name the price, they can give us the biggest lemon in the fleet – three of them – and Richard Marles will give that blank cheque to the US.”

All the signs of demented decay and facile strategic thinking are there in this pact. The need to extend the life of the Collins-class submarines. The likelihood that the United Kingdom will be unable to stomach its side of the bargain. The continued bleeding of the Australian purse for American and British submarine building. And the deeply troubling sense that, when the time comes, the United States will go to war with China, expecting Australia to muck in. Given that Canberra has contrived and connived to turn Australia into an increasingly attractive garrison for adversaries to target, the room for escaping the orbit of an avoidable catastrophe, be it financial or military, is rapidly shrinking. Marles is unabashed by it all. “Chasing simplicity is at the heart of why we have pursued this.” A simplicity that well qualifies for the “bloody fool” category, one soon to be explored by a public inquiry that promises to be a real hoot.