UK ties deepen as Britannia rules the waves with frigates

Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!

The Turnbull government has underlined its deepening strategic partnership with the post-Brexit United Kingdom by choosing the BAE Type 26 as Australia’s new anti-submarine warfare frigate.

In one of the biggest defence contracts in recent global history, Canberra will spend $35 billion to build nine lethal frigates.

They will be sub-hunters, missile defence ships, air warfare combatants and they will be powerful, dangerous and leading-edge.

This was a rigorous competitive evaluation that took two full years. The participation of the Spanish and the Italian options made the competition intense and worked to Australia’s benefit.

The Italians in particular ran the British close.

But it was the strong technical assessment of the Defence assessment team, the SEA 5000 Project Team, and the joint recommendation of Defence Minister Marise Payne and Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne that BAE was the most capable choice.

The single most important factor in making the decision was capability, the ability to detect and attack other ships and submarines, and the ability to stay undetected itself, which won the Type 26 its victory. It had a few hurdles to clear.

One is that the Italian and Spanish ships are already in the water and the British ship is not yet complete. However, the Brits will have built several of their own new Type 26 ships before Australia begins to cut steel in 2020, so the government took the view that the risk involved in a ship not yet in the water was modest.

The capability edge was the upside for the Type 26. The biggest advantage the Italian Fincantieri Fremm had was that it held two helicopters, and two helicopters are better than one in hunting and killing subs.

However, the Type 26 has space for two helicopters if that’s what Australia wants.

Formal contract negotiations with BAE start today and there will be some modifications from the British design. Canberra’s assessment was that the Type 26 would involve the fewest design modifications to meet Australia’s needs.

Malcolm Turnbull was closely involved in the process and more than once asked for more specific information or wanted certain elements of the program tweaked.

The Turnbull government has done the right thing by Australia’s national interest in pushing these naval acquisition projects through. Its actions, in deciding on the 12 submarines and now the nine frigates and the other naval projects, stand in stark contrast to the radical inaction of the Rudd-Gillard years on fleet replenishment.

The philosophy of requiring the work to be done in Australia and moving consciously to a continuous build program gives Australia the greatest chance it has had for decades of developing a meaningful shipbuilding industry and one that can survive.

The fact that BAE was already a substantial commercial and defence presence in Australia counted heavily in its favour.

The most important element of this decision is the military capability element.

The second most important is the industry development dimension. This will sustain an Australian sovereign capability and because the lion’s share of the stakeholders in the project will be in Australia, this means there is a good chance it will survive the inevitable pressures that come on defence budgets.

The traditional bust and boom of defence budgets has been a killer for defence industry and for Australian military capability.

There is a third big dimension. Britain is one of Australia’s closest allies, our most intimate defence partner after the US. It is not a first-division player in Asian security but it is a tier-one defence power.

Theresa May’s reported questioning of whether such status was necessary for Britain is one of the few disturbing defence signals from London.

Overall, the UK remains the most powerful military force in western Europe, the US’s closest ally, a world leader in defence technology and an intimate five eyes intelligence partner of both Australia and the US.

Free of all the old shibboleths, but not free of mutual affection and regard, the Australia-UK strategic relationship just took a big step forward.