UK submarine service woes could sink Australia’s nuclear submarine plans, expert warns
Plans to develop a new class of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia and the UK under the AUKUS pact are likely to collapse due to the complex situation in the UK’s submarine service, a former British defense official has warned.
Under the “optimal pathway” for AUKUS announced by the Albanian government in March 2023, the British and Australian navies will introduce a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarines known as SSN-AUKUS from the late 2030s, with at least five to be built in South Australia.
Retired Rear Admiral Philip Mathias, a former director of nuclear policy at the UK Ministry of Defence, said he feared Australians were not sufficiently informed about how the problems plaguing the British navy could sink both countries’ AUKUS targets.
Mathias said British politicians have enthusiastically embraced the industrial and economic opportunities of AUKUS and want to expand the UK’s military presence in the Indo-Pacific.
“But politics and money are not building nuclear submarines. People are doing it, and there are not enough of them with the right level of skills and experience,” Mathias, a former nuclear submarine commander, told this imprint.
“While the United States could sell some [nuclear-powered submarines] “From Australia’s perspective, the UK element of AUKUS is likely to fail, making the international debate over the cancellation of Australia’s plan to build French-designed submarines in 2021 seem irrelevant.”
Mathias, who led the 2010 review of the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system, said: “It is clear that Australia displayed great naivety and failed to adequately investigate the dire state of the UK’s nuclear submarine program before signing up to AUKUS and parting with the billions of dollars it had already set out to make.”
“The last four years have seen numerous announcements and political demonstrations, as well as numerous international visits, forums and discussions, but little significant progress has been made in actually developing the industrial base needed to build and support nuclear-powered submarines.”
While the USA plans to sell three second-hand Virginia-class submarines to Australia within the scope of the AUKUS pact, the UK and Australia will separately develop SSN-AUKUS, which will replace the British navy’s decommissioned Astute-class nuclear-powered submarine.
Currently in the design phase, SSN-AUKUS is planned to enter service in the UK in the late 2030s and in Australia in the early 2040s.
Mathias said key organizations overseeing the British program were beleaguered by a lack of leaders with any meaningful nuclear submarine experience or expertise, straining Britain’s ability to support Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine plans.
Mathias warned that even if SSN-AUKUS was delivered, the boat would likely be “much larger and less agile” than previous classes of British nuclear-powered submarines, which would require trade-offs in capability and operations.
He stated that the number of British nuclear-powered submarines available to counter the Russian threat in the North Atlantic or to escort aircraft carrier strike groups operating in the Indo-Pacific was “shockingly low”.
He said a lack of suitable boats meant the UK’s ballistic missile submarines now had to last more than 200 days on patrol, up from around 70 days during the Cold War.
A spokesman for the Australian Submarine Agency, which is responsible for the delivery of AUKUS, said: “The Government has always been clear that this is an ambitious programme, and we acknowledged the challenges posed when the optimal route was announced in 2023.
“Working closely with our partners, we are achieving important milestones and AUKUS continues to move forward at full speed.
“We remain confident that all three countries can work collectively to deliver this program. Each AUKUS partner is making significant investments in their industrial bases to deliver on their AUKUS commitments on time.”
Mathias made headlines in December when he told England: Daily Telegraph He said Britain was “no longer capable of managing a nuclear submarine programme” and that “performance across all aspects of the program continues to deteriorate on all dimensions”.
“This is an unprecedented situation in the nuclear submarine era,” he said. “This is a catastrophic failure in succession and leadership planning.”
Mathias, who oversaw Britain’s nuclear defense policy from 2005 to 2008, emphasized that he did not rely on any confidential information when making his assessments.
“In a democracy, the public should be aware that this extremely expensive and important program has been grossly mismanaged,” he said. “Our enemies will certainly be, especially by counting our submarines, using satellite imagery and reading inspection reports that are already publicly available.”
UK defense publication Navy Lookout Last year he reported that there had been several recent periods when the British navy had no nuclear-powered submarines at sea.
“Of the six boats currently in service, only one is operational and four have very low readiness.” the publication reported.
Starmer’s government announced in June that it would build up to 12 SSN-AUKUS attack submarines as part of a comprehensive defense review, confirming its commitment to “doubling down on both pillars of the AUKUS agreement” (referring to nuclear-powered submarines and other advanced technologies).
A month later, the governments of Australia and the United Kingdom signed the Geelong Treaty to ensure cooperation on the design, construction, operation, maintenance and disposal of SSN-AUKUS submarines.
Jennifer Parker, a maritime security expert at UNSW, said she respected Mathias’ expertise and acknowledged there were “major problems” with the current submarine service in the UK.
But he said investment in AUKUS was more likely to improve the UK’s submarine performance rather than reduce it. “Having more than one country design and operate new submarines will help solve, not prevent, any problems,” he said.
Parker said the UK was unlikely to give up its nuclear-powered submarine capability given increasing geostrategic tensions in Europe, adding that underwater drones could not fulfill all the roles of crewed submarines.
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