New Submarines Likely to Be a ‘Tri-Nation’ Project: UK Defence Minister

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace in an undated file photo. (Ian Forsyth/PA)

Australia’s new submarines could potentially see the U.S. and UK work together to design and build a brand-new submarine class altogether.

The UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the decision was ultimately up to the Australian government, noting it would also be “collaborative.”

“It’s a joint endeavour. Whether that is the sharing of technology, and the understanding of how to do it, the sharing of the build, or the sharing of the design,” he said after a meeting between Australian and UK ministers on Jan. 2.

“The Australian government’s getting exactly to the position where it knows what it wants,” he said.

“I’m pretty confident that it will be a tri-nation project.”

The UK is currently developing the successor to its Astute-class nuclear submarine.

The comments from Wallace come after Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles noted that Australia did not underestimate the challenge that was involved in arming itself with the capability but that the government was confident that the trilateral partners would be able to meet the challenges.

“AUKUS is central to that,” Marles said.

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“I think what you'll see is when we ultimately do announce the optimal pathway that we’ve been working on with both the United States and the United Kingdom, that what it really is, is a genuinely trilateral effort to see both the UK and the U.S. provide Australia with a nuclear-powered submarine capability.”

AUKUS was unveiled in September 2021 in a surprise joint announcement between U.S., UK, and Australian leaders that would see Australia armed with nuclear-powered submarines and take part in research cooperation in ground-breaking fields like quantum computing, undersea capabilities, hypersonics, and artificial intelligence.

Concerns Around Delays

In recent months, there has been speculation that U.S. shipyards will be unable to supply Australia with additional submarines because of a lack of extra capacity.

The nuclear-submarine industry requires not only the right facilities but a highly trained workforce numbering in the tens of thousands. The U.S. and UK governments have pledged to assist Australia with training and upskilling its industry.

However, Marles has downplayed any concerns about delays.

“We’re confident that what we will be announcing in the coming weeks is a pathway that will be able to be delivered by all partners on time, and obviously, we are talking about a program that is not measured in weeks or months but is actually going to take place over years and decades,” he told ABC Radio’s AM on Feb. 1.

The minister is now jet-setting to the United States to hold further discussions on the program.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has also reported that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese may also travel to the United States in March to unveil the final plan alongside U.S. President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The UK’s Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific, Anne-Marie Trevalyan said Australia’s submarines would likely be used to patrol the Indo-Pacific and secure trade routes.

“Free and fair-trade work if the waterways are clear and safe,” she told reporters. “A lot of the Royal Navy’s job for several hundred years was chasing pirates to allow those ships that want to move goods around to do so.

“So, the Australian commitment to want to have a next generation of submarines, which they can help assure the region’s security, is one that we are absolutely committed to helping.”

China’s Opposition to AUKUS Driven by Fear

Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party has been vocal in its opposition to AUKUS, with the CCP foreign affairs spokesperson Mao Ning declaring it is fueling military confrontation in the Asia-Pacific and is driven by Cold War thinking.

“China is deeply concerned and firmly opposed to it,” Mao said.

According to China watchers, Beijing is genuinely worried about AUKUS, with mainland scholars and analysts’ responding to AUKUS with genuine concern and fear.

Analysts believe this is due to China’s fear of a Western-led coalition that, along with Japan, could contain China and bring the West into geostrategic dominance.

“With Japan at one vertex and India at the other, Australia’s nuclear submarines will allow the Allies to close a “strategic triangle at the second island chain’s southernmost point, shortening the distance for reconnaissance, monitoring, and rapid response against China, as well as achieving long-range hypersonic precision strike capabilities,” writes Tuvia Gering in an article for The China Project.

Gering is a research fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), who specializes in Chinese politics and foreign policy.

She also notes this comes from the Chinese regime’s inability to reflect on cause and effect, arguing that Chinese officials ignore  China’s own part in the regional geopolitical struggles, which include an “ongoing rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal in hundreds of new silos and mobile ICBMs, its recent test of nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles.

“Without the ability to reflect, they preach that Australia “is the one to blame for current difficulties” in bilateral relations, dismiss international tribunal arbitration on the South China Sea as “waste paper,” and blame Taiwan for having an unprecedented number of PLA jets travel into its Air Defense Identification Zone,” Gering said.

AAP contributed to this article.