Articles 
PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT
https://www.facebook.com/Human-Survival-Project-388802504634024
AUKUS SUBMARINE PLAN MAKES NO GEOSTRATEGIC SENSE, IRRELEVANT OR WORSE FOR AUSTRALIAS SECURITY
The Aukus submarine plan announced this morning Australian time from San Diego California simultaneously by US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, makes neither military, technical, nor strategic sense, and does not match Australia’s real requirements either for Submarines, or for capabilities that will ensure our immediate, medium term and long term security. Rather it has the potential to blow out costs and to become a colossal boondoggle that will haunt Australian taxpayers for decades to come. In addition it makes facilities associated with the new submarines into nuclear targets.
Viewed in this way, the Aukus submarine project is, on the whole, a pronounced negative for Australian security.
Australia DOES face significant security challenges not ten years down the track, not in the 2030s or the 2040s when the proposed new subs actually arrive, but potentially this year next year, and over the next five years. These are immediate challenges, not things that may materialise over the next 2 decades. These are the challenges posed by the war in Ukraine and its geopolitical consequences, and by an increasingly assertive China, but a China that might still be amenable to diplomatic approaches and that unlike Russia has not completely lost its moorings in the world of reality.
These challenges will not be met, and cannot be met, by a capability that – even if it is as good as it is reputed to be which it isn't – arrives in the 2030s or 2040s. If, God forbid, there is conflict over Taiwan that is as likely to be within the next 12 months as the next 10 years. It's an immediate contingency. It is also one that is better met by entirely non-military approaches, not by beating the drums of war with China.
But the Aukus sub isn’t even the capability Australia needs. It has been shown in military exercises over and over again that advanced CONVENTIONAL subs, with or without air-independent propulsion, are actually far far quieter than nuclear ones. This is because nuclear submarines operate their main engines all the time, underwater or otherwise, and turbines, pumps etc make noise. Not as much noise as pounding diesels but noise all the time. They leave an inevitable sonar trace.
Advanced conventional subs – including the existing Collins Class – become 'black holes' in the water, actually quieter than the water they are in.
Many of Australia's submariners, I understand, are actively lobbying for a 'son of Collins' type submarine to replace the existing Collins Class, instead of nuclear submarines.
They are absolutely right. Upgrades to Collins can be done NOW, without first having to create an entirely new infrastructure to do it with. The geo-strategic need is NOW not ten years down the track.
If Australia’s security problems end by having to have military solutions, we have already failed and we are not where we should be. The challenges posed by China have first of all diplomatic solutions not military ones, and Australia should seek 'win-win' diplomatic solutions.
If we come to a military confrontation, Son of Collins or an upgraded Collins offers an immediate – term capability that can never come from nuclear subs ten years down the track that are in reality less quiet than Collins.
That Australia is announcing an exotic and probably irrelevant military capability instead of its accession to the Nuclear Ban Treaty (TPNW) shows a sad lack of thought and miss-allocation of priorities. If Australia wants to improve its security, signature and ratification of the TPNW must be a top priority.
John Hallam
Nuclear Disarmament Campaigner
People for Nuclear Disarmament
Human Survival Project
Co-Convenor, Abolition 2000 Nuclear Risk Reduction Working Group
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