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Gareth Evans
Gareth Evans

Opinion | Why Australia should welcome collapse of lopsided Aukus deal

Aukus was a bad deal for Australia when it was signed and even more so now. A US review that could bring the deal to an end is happy news

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Two Australian Collins class submarines at the HMAS Stirling Royal Australian Navy base in Perth, Western Australia, on October 29, 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE
Gareth Evans
The Aukus partnership, the 2021 deal whereby the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to provide Australia with at least eight nuclear-propelled submarines over the next three decades, has come under review by the US Defence Department.
The prospect of its collapse has generated predictable hand-wringing among those who welcomed the deepening alliance, and especially among those interested in seeing Australia inject billions of dollars into underfunded, underperforming American and British naval shipyards. But in Australia, an Aukus breakdown should be a cause for celebration.

After all, there has never been any certainty that the promised subs would arrive on time. The US is supposed to supply three, or possibly five, Virginia-class submarines from 2032, with another five newly designed SSN-Aukus-class subs (built mainly in the UK) coming into service from the early 2040s. But the US and the UK’s industrial capacities are already strained, owing to their own national submarine-building targets, and both have explicit opt-out rights.

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Some analysts assume that the Defence Department review is just another Trumpian extortion exercise, designed to extract an even bigger financial commitment from Australia. But while comforting to some Australians (though not anyone in the Treasury), this interpretation is misconceived.

There are very real concerns in Washington that even with more Australian dollars devoted to expanding shipyard capacity, the US will not be able to increase production to the extent required to make available three – let alone five – Virginia-class subs by the early 2030s. Moreover, Elbridge Colby, the US undersecretary of defence for policy who is leading the review, has long been a sceptic of the project, and he will not hesitate to put America’s own new-boat target first.

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Even in the unlikely event that everything falls smoothly into place – from the transfers of Virginia-class subs to the construction of new British boats, with no human-resource bottlenecks or cost overruns – Australia will be waiting decades for the last boat to arrive. But given that our existing geriatric Collins-class fleet is already on life support, this timeline poses a serious challenge. How will we address our capability gap in the meantime?

03:38

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