US to put nuclear submarines on fast track

Australia is set to get its first nuclear submarine at least five years ahead of schedule after Washington agreed to help fast-track the project.

Australia is set to receive its first nuclear powered submarine at least five years ahead of schedule. Pictured: A UK Royal Navy nuclear powered submarine.

Australia is set to get its first ­nuclear submarine at least five years ahead of schedule after Washington agreed to help fast-track the project, Defence Minister Peter Dutton has revealed.

The Pentagon has backed the Morrison government’s push to shorten the timelines to acquire a nuclear-powered fleet at a time of growing regional instability and a rising China.

Mr Dutton said he now expected the first Australian nuclear submarine to be completed in the “first half of the 2030s” compared with the initial estimate of 2040.

“I think it’s the Americans’ desire to see us with capability much sooner than 2040 and obviously options are being explored at the moment,” Mr Dutton said.

“I believe very much we can realise the capability in the first half of the 2030s and we are absolutely working towards that and I am only encouraged, not discouraged, out of the conversations we have had.”

He said that his “wildest expectations” had been exceeded by the level of co-operation from both the UK and the US since the creation of the AUKUS pact in September.

“I think we are advancing at a quicker pace than what we could have imagined even at the time of the announcement,” Mr Dutton said. “There has been no game-playing, no roadblocks, they are pulling out all stops to make this work.

“It’s a capability that we want to acquire quickly and we are in those discussions right now.”

Mr Dutton did not say how the shortened timeline would be achieved, saying that the options were being worked through in high-level meetings with US and UK officials. He also gave no indication of whether Australia would ultimately choose the US Virginia Class submarines or the British Astute Class submarines.

Defence Minister Peter Dutton. Picture Dean Martin

However he did strongly hint that the new submarines would be built in Australia rather than in the US or the UK.

“I think when you speak with the Brits and the Americans, they’ve got limited capacity within their own production lines so I think there is an inevitability around the build in Australia,” he said. “In fact we’ve got people that we are working with from both the US and the UK now on shipyard design … that’s been a priority for us.”

Mr Dutton’s comments will be received with scepticism by many strategic analysts who do not believe that Australia has the capability or know-how to build its own nuclear-powered submarine by the mid-2030s.

Such a tight timeline would require enormous assistance from the US and the UK in training an Australian workforce to understand and handle nuclear technology as well as the training of crews. It would almost certainly require US or UK submariners to be part of the crew on the Australian boats until local crews were qualified.

If Mr Dutton’s new timeline were realised, it would remove any danger of a capability gap in the submarine fleet between the arrival of the nuclear boats and the retirement of the Collins Class submarines.

The six Collins Class boats will be overhauled to extend their life until they are gradually phased out between 2038 and 2048.

If the first nuclear boat were built in the first half of the 2030s, it would be a similar timeline to that of the now-scrapped French submarine project which had anticipated that the first French boat would be built by 2035.

The government has said it intends to build eight-nuclear powered submarines in Adelaide with the assistance of the US and the UK. They will not be armed with nuclear weapons.

Mr Dutton said he was not concerned by recent criticism of the AUKUS pact by China and its president Xi Jinping. “A lot of the scripted rhetoric is fairly ­consistent … anyone who thinks this rhetoric is reserved for Australia doesn’t watch which China has to say (about other countries),” he said.

“We want a productive and fruitful friendship with China but we have values that we adhere to and we will not deviate from those values and adherence to international law.”

Mr Dutton said he believed the AUKUS pact would add to the stability of the region rather than undermine it as Beijing had claimed.

The government is expected to announce in the first half of 2022 the details of how it plans to acquire its nuclear-powered submarine fleet.