# Surface tension: could the promised Aukus nuclear submarines simply never be handed over to Australia?

The multi-billion dollar deal was heralded as ensuring the security of the Indo-Pacific. But with America an increasingly unreliable ally, doubts are rising above the waves.

Maybe Australia’s boats just never turn up.

To fanfare and flags, the  deal was presented as a sure bet, papering over an uncertainty that such an ambitious deal could ever be delivered.

## Surface tension no longer reliable ally

Officially at least, Aukus remains on course, centrepiece of a storied security alliance.

Pillar one of the Australia-UK-US agreement involves, first, Australia buying between three and five Virginia-Class nuclear-powered submarines from the US – the first of these in 2032.

Then, by the “late 2030s”, according to Australia’s , the UK will deliver the first specifically designed and built Aukus submarine. The first Australian-built version will be in the water “in the early 2040s”. Aukus is forecast to cost up to $368bn to the mid-2050s.

But in both Washington and Canberra, there is growing concern over the very first step: America’s capacity to build the boats it has promised Australia, and – even if it had the wherewithal to build the subs – whether it would relinquish them into Australian control.

The gnawing anxiety over Aukus sits within a broader context of a rewritten rulebook for relations between America and its allies. Amid the _Sturm und Drang_ of the first weeks of Trump’s second administration, there is growing concern that the reliable ally is no longer that.

With the casual, even brutal, dismissal of Ukraine – an ally for whom the US has provided security guarantees for a generation – the old certainties exist no longer.

“I think America is a much less dependable ally under  Trump than it was,” the former prime minister  tells the Guardian this week. “And this is not a criticism of Trump, this is literally a feature, not a bug: he’s saying that he’s less dependable.

“It may be that – regrettably – we do end up with no submarines. And then we have to invest in other ways of defending ourselves. But the big message is that we are going to have to look at defending Australia by ourselves.

“That’s really the issue. We cannot assume that the Americans will always turn up.”

Trump can hardly be accused of hiding his priorities. If the 47th president has a doctrine beyond self-interest, “America First” has been his shibboleth since before his first term.

“Our allies have taken advantage of us more so than our enemies,” he said on the campaign trail. He : “I will, very simply, put America first.”

## The cheque did clear

On 8 February, Australia paid $US500m ($AUD790m) to the US, the first instalment in a total of $US3bn pledged in order to support America’s shipbuilding industry. Aukus was, Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles said, “a powerful symbol of our two countries working together in the Indo-Pacific”.

“It represents a very significant increase of the American footprint on the Australian continent … it represents an increase in Australian capability, through the acquisition of a nuclear‑powered submarine capability … it also represents an increase in Australian defence spending”.

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth – joking that “the cheque did clear” – gave succour to Aukus supporters, saying his country’s mission in the Indo-Pacific was not one “that America can undertake by itself”.

“Allies and partners, technology sharing and subs are a huge part of it.”

But, just three days after Australia’s cheque cleared, the  saying while the nuclear-powered attack submarines (known as SSNs) intended for Australia might be built, the US could decide to never hand them over.


*President Biden (centre) announcing the Aukus deal with Scott Morrison (l) and Boris Johnson (r) in 2021. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock*

Under a proposed alternative, “up to eight additional Virginia-class SSNs would be built, and instead of three to five of them being sold to Australia, these additional boats would instead be retained in US Navy service and operated out of Australia along with the five US and UK submarines that are already planned to be operated out of Australia”.

The paper argued that Australia, rather than spending money to buy, build and sail its own nuclear-powered submarines, would instead invest that money in other military capabilities – long-range missiles, drones, or bombers – “so as to create an Australian capacity for performing non-SSN military missions for both Australia and the United States”.

On , the US is projected to have half the working submarines it needs in 2032 and is building new boats at half the rate it needs to.

Trump believes it can be fixed. He told an address to Congress-cum-campaign rally this week he would “resurrect the American shipbuilding industry” by establishing a new “office of shipbuilding” inside the White House.

“We’re going to make them very fast, very soon.”

## A sunken history

Submarines have long presented logistical and political turmoil for Australian governments.

The country’s first submarine, HMAS AE1, hit the sea floor near Papua New Guinea in September 1914, barely seven months into service. All hands were lost. The second was scuttled by its crew the next year after five days of operations during the Gallipoli campaign.

In 1919, Australia was “gifted” six obsolete J-class submarines by Britain. They were sold for scrap within five years. Subsequent decades brought persistent issues with costs and crewing and difficulties simply keeping boats in the water.

The nation’s current submarine fleet, the Collins-class fleet, was built over two decades from 1990, with the first boat put to sea in 1996.


*The USS Minnesota, a Virginia-class nuclear submarine, in Rockingham, Western Australia, in February. Photograph: Getty Images*

But to replace that now-ageing class, three different submarine designs have been pursued by successive governments, with boats to be built by Japan, France and now – under Aukus – the US and UK.

Indecision has brought delay, and with it, a capability gap: a vulnerability exposed in recent weeks when a flotilla of Chinese warships – perhaps accompanied by an undetected nuclear submarine – circumnavigated Australia, and undertook allegedly unforecast live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea.

## They have no obligation to sell us a submarine

In 2016 then prime minister Turnbull signed a $50bn deal with the French Naval Group for new diesel-electric submarines to be built in Australia.

That agreement – which had subsequently encountered delays and cost over-runs – was unilaterally cancelled by his successor, Scott Morrison, who, in 2021, dramatically signed Aukus with US president Joe Biden and UK prime minister Boris Johnson. None of these men are in office any more.

Turnbull argues pillar one of the Aukus deal was a “catastrophe” from conception, and its liabilities “are becoming more apparent every day”.

“We are spending a fortune vastly more than the partnership with France would have involved. We’re spending vastly more and we are very likely, I would say almost certainly, going to end up with no submarines at all.

“We’re giving the Americans US$3bn to support their submarine industrial base, but they have no obligation to sell us a submarine.”

He says Morrison’s agreement to Aukus “sacrificed Australia’s honour, sovereignty and security”.


*Officer stripped of security clearance over Israel loyalty still in Australian defence force. Photograph: David Gilbert/Getty Images*

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