By any serious strategic measure, AUKUS was always an audacious bet. Five years on from its announcement in 2021, it is increasingly difficult to sustain the argument that it is a prudent one.
The core promise was straightforward. Australia would acquire nuclear-powered submarines through a trilateral partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom, closing a long-acknowledged capability gap and embedding itself more deeply in the Western alliance structure. In practice, the arrangement has become a sprawling, uncertain and extraordinarily expensive undertaking that now faces mounting criticism from defence insiders, former military leaders, economists and strategic analysts.
The most immediate concern is operational. AUKUS does not deliver submarines for decades, yet Australia’s existing Collins-class fleet is ageing. That gap, long flagged in policy circles, is now being described in stark terms. Former rear admiral Peter Briggs, who once commanded Australia’s submarine fleet, has warned that the country is “heading for a train smash” and risks losing its submarine capability altogether .
This is not fringe commentary. It reflects a structural problem in the AUKUS design. The interim solution depends on the United States transferring Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the early 2030s. Yet US shipbuilding capacity is already under strain. The US Navy itself has publicly stated it needs around 66 attack submarines to meet its own strategic requirements. Current projections suggest it may fall well short of that number.
The logic is unforgiving. If Washington cannot meet its own fleet targets, it becomes politically and strategically difficult for any US president to certify that selling submarines to Australia would not degrade American capability. Briggs’ assessment is blunt. There will be no surplus submarines to give.
The British leg of AUKUS is no more reassuring. The planned SSN-AUKUS class, to be jointly developed with the UK, is not expected to enter Australian service until the early 2040s. That timeline rests on an industrial base already described by critics as overstretched and under-resourced. Retired British rear admiral Philip Mathias has gone further, warning there is a “high probability” that the UK component of AUKUS will fail .
Taken together, these risks point to a deeper issue. AUKUS is not a single program. It is a chain of interdependent promises across three countries, each facing its own industrial bottlenecks, political cycles and fiscal constraints. If any link weakens, the entire structure becomes unstable.
Cost compounds the uncertainty. The Australian government has indicated that AUKUS could exceed A$368 billion over its lifetime. That figure is not fixed. It is an estimate built on assumptions about inflation, workforce expansion, supply chains and exchange rates that are themselves volatile. Large-scale defence procurement projects rarely come in on budget. AUKUS is unlikely to be an exception.
Critics argue that this scale of expenditure crowds out other defence priorities. Australia faces immediate challenges in cyber security, long-range strike capability, northern base resilience and conventional maritime assets. Committing hundreds of billions to a capability that may not arrive until the 2040s imposes opportunity costs that are difficult to ignore.
There is also a sovereignty question. AUKUS ties Australia more tightly to US strategic planning at a time when the reliability of that partnership is increasingly debated. Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has warned that the arrangement deepens dependence on Washington precisely as US foreign policy becomes more unpredictable. The concern is not abstract. The transfer of submarines, the sharing of nuclear propulsion technology and the operation of the fleet itself will all require ongoing US approval and integration.
Strategically, this raises a dilemma. AUKUS is justified as a means of enhancing Australian autonomy and deterrence. Yet it may, in practice, reduce Australia’s ability to act independently by embedding its most critical military capability within another country’s industrial and political system.
None of this is to suggest that the status quo was acceptable. Australia’s submarine replacement program has been plagued by delays and political reversals for decades. As senior Defence official Hugh Jeffrey has noted, AUKUS is the fourth attempt to resolve the problem . That history explains the reluctance within government to abandon the current plan.
But persistence is not a strategy. Continuing with a flawed approach because previous ones failed risks compounding, rather than correcting, earlier mistakes.
There are alternatives. Some analysts advocate for a larger fleet of smaller, conventionally powered submarines that could be delivered sooner. Others have proposed revisiting European options, including designs like the French Suffren class. These pathways are not without challenges. Yet they offer a clearer line of sight to capability within a realistic timeframe.
What is striking is how little of this debate has been conducted in public. AUKUS has been framed as a strategic inevitability, a cornerstone of national security that must be accepted rather than interrogated. That framing is increasingly at odds with the evidence emerging from defence experts, industrial assessments and budget projections.
The final question is who benefits from maintaining the current course. Governments gain political cover by signalling alignment with powerful allies. Defence bureaucracies secure long-term funding streams. And, crucially, major defence contractors stand to receive sustained, multi-decade contracts tied to submarine construction, maintenance and associated technologies.
These companies are not peripheral actors. They sit at the centre of the AUKUS ecosystem, shaping timelines, influencing policy settings and absorbing vast public expenditure. Their interests are clear. Long programs with high complexity and limited competition generate reliable revenue and reduce commercial risk.
In that context, AUKUS begins to look less like a coherent defence strategy and more like an industrial policy dressed in strategic language.
Australia is being asked to commit to a project that may not deliver capability when it is needed, at a cost that is still uncertain, and with a degree of dependence that raises legitimate questions about sovereignty. The warning signs are no longer speculative. They are being articulated by those with direct experience of the systems involved.
Continuing down this path increasingly serves those who profit from the machinery of defence. The beneficiaries are not abstract. They are the corporations and investors who stand to gain from decades of guaranteed spending.
AUKUS was sold as a solution. It now risks becoming a very expensive problem.
Comments
Post a Comment