According to four US officials on Wednesday, Australia is anticipated to purchase up to five US Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines in the 2030s as part of a historic military agreement between Washington, Canberra, and London. This agreement would pose a new challenge to China.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden will meet with the leaders of Australia and the United Kingdom in San Diego to discuss the future delivery of nuclear-powered submarines and other high-tech arms to Australia.
According to one of the officials, the AUKUS pact will take place in stages, beginning with at least one American submarine visiting Australian ports in the coming years, and concluding with the construction of a new class of submarines using British designs and American technology in the late 2030s.
The Western countries have been increasingly trying to restrict China’s military power pressure on Taiwan, and increasingly aggressive deployments in the disputed South China Sea, which China has condemned.
Two of the sources stated that by around 2027, the United States would further set up some submarines in Western Australia following the yearly port visits. Australia would purchase three Virginia class submarines in the early 2030s, with the option to purchase two more.
The AUKUS agreement
AUKUS is anticipated to be Australia’s largest defense project to date and provides the possibility of employment in all three nations.
Six Collins-class submarines with conventional propulsion are already in Australia’s navy, and they will have an extension of service life till 2036. Nuclear submarines are more difficult to detect than conventional ones and can submerge for extended periods of time. The authorities gave no further details, including where the new class of submarines would be manufactured.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will visit the US for additional discussions on AUKUS, according to a statement from London that was reiterated by the British Embassy in Washington.
As part of the combined actions of the United States and the United Kingdom against China, the two countries acceded to supply Australia with the technology and capacity to instate nuclear-powered submarines under the initial AUKUS agreement, which first came up in 2021.
But an agreement between the three nations on precisely how to accomplish that objective had not been worked out.
According to a congressional source, the US Congress has been briefed on the upcoming AUKUS deal several times recently in an effort to win support for the legal amendments required to resolve technology transfer concerns for the highly protected nuclear propulsion and sonar systems that will be installed on Australia’s new submarines.
Australian employees will visit American submarine shipyards over the following five years to watch and receive training. As there is presently a labour shortage for shipyard workers that the United States requires to build its submarines, this training will directly benefit U.S. submarine production, the source claimed.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan, which was published last year, predicted submarine production would range from 1.76 to 2.24 per year and that the fleet would increase to 60 to 69 nuclear attack submarines by 2052.
There are currently 17 Virginia class submarines in General Dynamics Corp’s inventory, with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2032.
Nuclear submarines are currently only possessed by the five nations that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) designates as weapons states: the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France.
