AUKUS alliance: We need to pool our defence capabilities

An Australian Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter arrives to transport US Army paratroopers during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2021 in July. Picture: ADF

Amid the flags and fine words announcing the arrival of AUKUS, no one should mistake the reality that the US, Britain and Australia each have a desperate need for this quasi alliance to succeed.

After the debacle of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Joe Biden needs a vehicle to refocus the US on the biggest strategic challenge of our age: an angry and authoritarian communist China.

Britain needs a foreign policy focus after Brexit and has decided that it needs a launching pad into the Indo-Pacific.

And Australia needs friends after several years of being punished by Beijing for the sheer rudeness of failing to subordinate our national interests to China.

More than at any time since the end of World War II, the strategic interests of Australia, the US and Britain closely align. This must amount to more than just the self-admiration of like-minded democracies. We need to pool our scientific, industrial and defence capabilities in ways that add strength to a collective push back against Beijing.

The US will put a price tag on giving Australia access to its closely guarded nuclear propulsion technology. Washington’s expectation is that Australia will not only look after its own security needs but also play a leading role in stabilising the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

This will come at a significant cost. We should work on the assumption that defence spending will grow from 2 per cent to 3 or 4 per cent of gross national product. To support a more prominent regional role, we also need to increase dramatically our spending on the anaemic Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Canberra politicians and officials simply will not absorb the message that the strategic leadership role Australia needs to play, and which our allies expect of us, will cost dramatically more than we like to spend.

Time for some reality checks: Scott Morrison advises there will be an 18-month period to scope out a nuclear propulsion pathway for Australian submarines, but he insists these boats will be built in Adelaide.

We are six years into developing the French-designed Attack-class submarines and nowhere near a finalised design. We have now increased the technology challenges for Australian industry. Insisting on an Australian build will mean a nuclear submarine delivered about four years later than the first Attack-class delivery date of 2034.

Britain and the US are building nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines. Either would be suitable options for Australia and we should resist the temptation to fiddle with the design to suit “Australian conditions”. Even if the intent is to build onshore in future, the immediate objective should be to get the first few Australian boats built in Britain or the US.

If we can’t bring a first of class Australian nuclear-powered submarine into service within the decade, we should think again about starting down this track at all. Rather than seeking to relocate in short order the full intellectual property and industrial capability required to build nuclear-propelled submarines, why not as a starting point develop a model similar to the Joint Strike Fighter, where Australia will build components used across the US or British fleets?

Based on early briefings, it seems the plan for these submarines is to repeat the capability design and development strategy that has just failed for the Attack-class model. This will not work in the time frame needed. Beyond just building the boats, an immense amount of work must be done to prepare for their arrival. The navy will need a large cadre of nuclear-trained personnel, safety regimes will have to be updated, work must begin on a new east coast navy base. Port Kembla near Wollongong may be the best choice. Navy facilities at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia and in Darwin must be expanded.

Defence released a statement on Thursday saying the “Australian government will no longer be proceeding with the Attack-class submarine program”. That project has become a disastrous case study in how not to do defence equipment acquisition.

Almost from the moment the French design was selected in April 2016, Australian governments ignored the need to explain the decision. Successive defence ministers left it to Defence officials to dismiss questions in parliamentary committees. It was as though Australia’s largest defence acquisition was never to be justified to the people.

Malcolm Turnbull’s political departure left the Attack-class submarine project friendless and a Defence organisation dead in the water of public opinion.

This could easily happen again with, let us call it, the AUKUS-class nuclear submarine. To deliver this boat the government needs to construct a floating and watertight Defence organisation.

Substantial effort needs to be invested in our relationship with France, which is too readily dismissed by Australia’s outdated Anglo elitists. France is a critical partner for Australia in the Pacific and has pushed back against Beijing harder than many other European countries. The Prime Minister must work to triage a valuable relationship with Paris.

Beyond submarines, Thursday’s announcement promised acquiring long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles for the navy, hypersonic weapons for the air force and “precision-strike guided missiles” for the army, and there are plans for a range of exotic technologies including artificial intelligence and quantum computing. This will transform the Australian Defence Force. Gone are the days of replacing old equipment with slightly more modern versions of the same thing.

A transformed ADF needs a new defence strategy. After the coming election a new defence white paper is needed. My advice would be for the government to produce that well away from the Department of Defence. New thinking is needed. We should take advantage of this AUKUS moment to recast fundamentally our defence policy, shed historical baggage and thoroughly modernise the ADF.

The People’s Republic of China and its usual array of backers will bemoan the “provocative” arrival of AUKUS. However, thinking people inside the Chinese Communist Party will realise that AUKUS is here because of Xi Jinping’s decision to make China the assertive bully.

AUKUS is the best thing to have happened in years to give Xi pause in his international risk-taking. The stronger AUKUS is, the less likely it is that there will be an attack on Taiwan. That is an invaluable outcome, one worth a submarine in its own right – and well worth the updating of our policy settings.

Peter Jennings is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and a former deputy secretary for strategy in the Department of Defence.