AUKUS is propelled by myths and secrets. It’s time they were busted

This is part of a series on AUKUS. Click here to read the full series.

“Nuclear submarines are the apex predator of the oceans.”

So said Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Malcolm Davis to The Australian Financial Review back in March, responding to news that the federal government would help fund and develop new naval production capability for nuclear submarine models, known as SSNs, as part of the AUKUS deal.

Apex predator. The two words capture it all. Think power. Invincibility. Triumph. 

Admirals speak in awe of the submarine’s ability to move fast, travel vast distances undetected by the enemy and stay “on station”, as the jargon has it, for months at a time.

The swagger of it is infectious, driven as it is by the defence professionals whose stock in trade is to sell, sell, sell in the name of keeping us safe. 

Yet behind the marketing lies a vastly different reality.

As Davis put it in that same interview: “What we will have to do, in order to make this a reality, is contribute to a third production line in the US, because the existing two production lines for the Virginia class cannot keep up with the US Navy’s requirements for SSNs, let alone Australia’s requirements.”

As Crikey reveals in a new investigative series, America’s nuclear-powered submarine industry — the fundamental driver of the AUKUS agreement — is in a state of shambles. 

Some key facts tell the story:

• close to 40% of the US Virginia class submarine fleet is out of service and undergoing repairs 
• US shipyards face a workforce crisis, with tens of thousands of jobs needing to be filled 
• key components of US Virginia class submarines have worn out well before their promised 33-year life expectancy
• there is a spare parts shortage, such that US shipyards have been forced to cannibalise other ships.

At the same time the US Congress is yet to vote on legislation to enable key elements of AUKUS to proceed.

The serious concern for Australia is that it will be relying on used Virginia class submarines from the US Navy to bridge its so-called capability gap. There’s also the question of why — if nuclear-powered submarines are as indispensable as defence says — the US has allowed its fleet to dwindle to its lowest level in decades.

The president reacts to a crisis

The dire state of the US nuclear fleet is not new. The years-long decline has been chronicled in a series of reports produced by the US Congressional Research Service, a valuable source of independent information used by members of the US Congress.

By 2021 the position had reached something of a crisis for US national security. In December that year President Joe Biden issued three presidential determinations. Without this exceptional action, according to the determinations, “United States industry could not be reasonably expected” to provide the capability to produce nuclear-powered submarines “in a timely manner” to maintain its maritime superiority.

The December 2021 determination was aimed specifically at overcoming problems with domestic supply chains as well as chronic workforce shortages that had long plagued the naval shipyards and inhibited submarine construction and repairs. 

The president’s directives came three months after Scott Morrison sprung the AUKUS agreement on an unsuspecting Australia. Australian workers have since begun arriving at US shipyards, though no-one from the Australian government has ever made it clear when Australia agreed to supply workers — or to send $3 billion to the US government for the building of US shipbuilding facilities.

A friend in need is a friend indeed

Did the US need Australia? Did Australia need the US? Or is AUKUS a meeting of the needy?

The marketing of the Scott Morrison story has it that Australia’s then-prime minister somehow managed to convince the forever reluctant US administration to allow Australia to enter the elite club of global powers with nuclear-powered submarines and thereby come to share the US’ ultimate nuclear jewels. Under this narrative, Morrison had shown extraordinary foresight and leadership as he expertly managed a super-secret international operation, without a word eking out.

It has always appeared fishy.

Now, as details emerge of how dire the US position had become, Morrison stands to look less the strategic maestro and more the provider of much-needed workers and money — as well as Australian facilities — to a once powerful friend.

The AUKUS-led economy — for some

Meanwhile the AUKUS dollars have begun to flow, as the United States and Australia see a joint interest in cementing the security alliance ahead of any possible Trump interference come the 2024 US election.

Shamefully for Australia’s big media operators, the sleuths who have revealed the AUKUS money trail are (largely) unpaid researchers with access to social media.

The researcher who uses the social media identity “Jommy Tee” has revealed that the Australian Defence Department has provided $172,000 to the US-based Center for a New American Security (CNAS) for strategic policy advice. That award was made in March this year. In May this year the CNAS appointed Scott Morrison to an unpaid advisory role. 

This is on top of the $8.5 million contract awarded to Ernst & Young by the defence department for “future nuclear regulatory office design”. (Jommy Tee revealed this on August 10. It was then reported by the SMH/The Age 11 days later.) 

Former senator Rex Patrick has also revealed the bonanza for consulting firms, publishing details of a dozen contracts worth millions of dollars as the new Australian submarine agency cranks up. One of the contracts was awarded to a former deputy secretary of defence.

That’s all before Australia prepares to transfer the billions of dollars it has pledged to the US as part of the price of entry.

After all, apex predators don’t come cheap.