Both the American and British divisions of Australia’s plan to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines are likely to fail, leaving the country with a dangerous undersea capability gap, a former submarine commander has warned.
A senior Defence official, however, said that scrapping another submarine plan would be reckless, as he argued that AUKUS critics fail to acknowledge the progress that has been made since the pact was announced in 2021.
Retired rear admiral Peter Briggs, who led the Australian navy’s submarine squadron, told a national security conference organised by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull that AUKUS was a “wasteful folly” that needed to be jettisoned as soon as possible.
“We’re facing the loss of a submarine capability,” Briggs said on Friday in Canberra.
“It is never too late to stop a plan that is not going to bloody well work, and it is not going to work… We are heading for a train smash.”
Briggs, who had a 40-year career in the navy, said the US navy would have “nowhere near the number of submarines they need” in the early 2030s to provide Australia with the three Virginia-class attack submarines envisaged under the AUKUS plan.
“There will be no surplus Virginias in 2031-2032 despite all the best efforts going on,” he said.
Briggs said that, because of notoriously slow production rates in American shipyards, the US would only have around 49 attack submarines available in 2032, far fewer than the 66 it says it requires for its own needs.
“The president of the day has to certify that there will be no reduction in capability,” he said. “If you’re going to sell Australia three [of your] frontline submarines, I don’t see how it is possible for the US president of the day to make that certification.”
Briggs said Australia also had to confront the likelihood that SSN-AUKUS – a new class of submarine Australia plans to build with the United Kingdom – will fall behind schedule because of backlogs in the “hollowed out” British submarine service.
“We need some political courage,” Briggs said, urging the Albanese government to pursue an alternative to AUKUS.
He said Australia needs at least 10 nimble submarines, rather than the eight large vessels planned under AUKUS.
The SSN-AUKUS, currently under design, is intended to enter service with the UK in the late 2030s and Australia in the early 2040s.
Briggs has previously called for Australia to seek to acquire a fleet of Suffren-class nuclear-powered submarines from French builder Naval Group instead of sticking to the AUKUS plan.
Retired British rear admiral Philip Mathias told this masthead earlier this year that “there is a high probability that the UK element of AUKUS will fail”.
Mathias said: “It is clear that Australia has shown a great deal of naivety and did not conduct sufficient due diligence on the parlous state of the UK’s nuclear submarine program before signing up to AUKUS – and parting with billions of dollars, which it has already started to do.”
Defence Department deputy secretary Hugh Jeffrey said the risks involved in scrapping AUKUS would outweigh those of sticking with the plan.
“This effort under AUKUS is, what, the fourth, by my count, attempt to replace a submarine program that we began in the 1980s,” he said.
“Each effort since then to replace it has fallen afoul of domestic politics. Are we really thinking that this should be the fourth? If you really want to be in a position where we have no submarines, then turn back … I do think we need to get on with business.”
Jeffrey said some AUKUS sceptics had predicted Donald Trump would withdraw from the AUKUS pact, but the US President had instead embraced it and declared “full steam ahead”.
Jeffrey said there were “very real challenges around increasing submarine production in Australia, in the United States and in the United Kingdom”.
“But let’s also not pretend that those trenchant risks don’t also exist in every other submarine department, every other defence industrial partner that Australia has,” he said.
“Every submarine-producing country faces intense pressure on skilled workforce, on infrastructure and on global supply chains. You can change your partners, maybe, but you can’t change pressures. They stay the same.”
Turnbull, a frequent critic of the AUKUS plan, said AUKUS had made Australia more dependent than ever on the US at the precise moment it is becoming a less reliable ally.
US Senator Tim Kaine said during a recent visit to Australia that he had no doubt the US would transfer Virginia-class submarines to Australia as promised.
“I believe 100 per cent we will provide them because I don’t think we have any other choice. I think the security demands make this a necessity,” he said.
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Matthew Knott is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X, Facebook or email.