So, is what we’ve just heard about the strength of Australian-UK relations and commitment to AUKUS fabulous news that reduces the risks and problems around the nuclear sub pact? No.
Does the new 50 year treaty, named after Geelong, a town in Richard Marles’ electorate, “cement the AUKUS submarine pact and bolster shipbuilding in both countries”? No.
The new treaty, signed by Australian and UK ministers last week, is a necessary piece of paperwork on the AUKUS journey. Its timing and the optimism from ministers look more like papering over the challenges and contradictions in the AUKUS plan rather than facing them
Talking up Australian-UK commitment is no doubt also a useful signal to Washington now, even if the main progress is new paperwork.
Is the treaty a cunning “Plan B” for AUKUS in case the Trump administration pulls the plug on the deal?
No: Australia and the United Kingdom need to formalise some undertakings in a treaty-level document to make the “Optimal Pathway” happen. But the fact the question is being asked shows the uncertainties around the deal and America.
But let’s get into some of the substance that is the background for this celebration of Aussie-UK unity and progress.
It doesn’t take much to look behind the curtain and see the scale of the challenges our UK partner faces.
First, this new treaty relies on the United States doing the heavy lifting to make AUKUS happen for the next 20 years. The treaty is to enable the United Kingdom to proceed with designing the new boats SSN-AUKUS and continuing work to build the first of these subs for its own Navy by sometime in the late 2030s, before delivering the first SSN-AUKUS to Australia in the early 2040s. Between now and then, the United States is the one on the hook to put hundreds of Australians into the crews of its own submarines, and for selling to Australia between three and five Virginia class subs out of its own Navy’s fleet (five would be because SSN-AUKUS experiences the kind of delays that look very possible).
Beyond the hype, there’s the reality of a weakened UK military looking at the hill it needs to climb to increase Britain’s commitment to European security. A disturbing admission in the Starmer government’s June Strategic Defence Review was that two decades of underinvestment has hollowing out the UK’s armed forces to an alarming level that must be addressed.
Then there’s the fact that, while UK nuclear powered attack submarines are soon meant to be frequent visitors to Australia rotating through Western Australia, the Royal Navy is struggling to deploy any of its seven attack subs. As of now, none are at sea. Maintenance and delivery troubles continue to affect UK capability. And that means no UK sub is escorting the UK’s aircraft carrier in the Talisman Sabre exercise.
This ugly reality about UK submarine production and maintenance makes the Starmer government’s assertion that it will increase the UK attack sub fleet to 12 boats and deliver new boats at the rate of one every 18 months look like vapourware. But that didn’t stop the announcement being taken to the bank in the AUKMIN communique.
UK Defence Secretary John Healey visiting HMAS Stirling on Monday (Rosie Hallam/UK Ministry of Defence)
The United Kingdom takes 10-11 years to build each Astute sub now. The considerably bigger, more complex SSN-AUKUS design will probably take longer. The UK’s submarine reactor program has been rated as unachievable for the last three years by the UK government’s watchdog, and UK submarine maintenance facilities are backlogged, so even the subs it has can’t get back to sea.
None of these problems look like being solved, making commitments to build even more – and bigger – subs much more quickly look courageous. The United States experience shows how hard it is to even move the production dial up at all, despite pouring additional billions into its submarine industrial base for years. Britain is well behind the United States in this effort and coming from a lower base.
And it’s beyond awkward that in its new strategic policy, the UK government has ditched its ambitious “Indo-Pacific shift” to bolster European security driven by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to Europe and America’s unreliability on European security.
That UK aircraft carrier in Darwin now may be the last one we see for some time in the Indo-Pacific (it’s been 28 years since the last one). And even if it does come back, it’s likely to struggle to have a full complement of fighters. The UK has shifted its plans from more carrier capable F-35Bs to 12 F-35As, because they help the UK beef up Europe’s nuclear deterrence.
Beyond rhetorical flourishes and airy commitments not anchored in industrial or military capacity, a note of pragmatism shone through statements from the UK visitors to Australia. This treaty on the road to AUKUS was good for Britain because it was good for jobs, bringing $40 billion into the United Kingdom (paid for by those generous Australians). Jobs featured ahead of security when UK ministers discussed the treaty. And back home, UK Defence Minister John Healey was reported as enthusing that even people “not yet born” would benefit from jobs secured through the deal.
There are obvious parallels with the French celebration of their cancelled sub deal as the “contract of the century” because of the billions that’d flow into the French coffers.
I don’t know if public confidence in AUKUS is advanced by the performances and announcements we’ve just seen. It doesn’t take much to look behind the curtain and see the scale of the challenges our UK partner faces. Instead of clear-eyed acknowledgement of the challenges and credible plans to address them, London and Canberra’s PR machines have put the spin cycle on “High”. If only hoopla and rhetoric were the main ingredients for nuclear submarines.