Honestly I'm surprised that Australia didn't go with nuclear submarines earlier. As an island nation, naval strenth needs to take top priority. It has an incredibly long coastline, much of which is sparsely populated, particularly in the north where any attack would be reasonably expected to come from, with few bases in the area to support fleet operations (to my knowledge there are no naval depots between Perth and Darwin with about 2500 miles of coastline in between). All potential adversaries are a long distance away and Australia has no overseas naval bases at which to refuel. Critically, all the major chokepoints that a potential adversary would need to sail through are very far from Australia, with it's territorial waters being extremely open. It's really a perfect use case for nuclear attack subs.
Just announced hosting more US bombers as well<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-17/us-raises-concerns-about-china-economic-coercion-of-australia/100469360" rel="nofollow">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-17/us-raises-concerns-ab...</a><p>Reality is that AU needs nuclear subs for offensive deterrence againt PRC because AU has already sunk cost too much into US orbit that the only thing left is to double down.<p>PineGap, Geraldton, Exmouth communication hubs, US is absurdly dependent on AU facilities for Indo-Pac operations. Aforementioned facilities will 100% be targeted by PRC if US containment efforts become kinetic. Hence these subs to threaten PLAN at choke points.<p>It helps that AU is a steadfast historic US ally, bordering on sycophancy, but in Mearsheimer words on future PRC/US/AU dynamic, if AU picks PRC, they become US enemies. I would extend that to AU being neutral as well. US _NEEDS_ AU facilities for Indo-Pac operation the same way it needed ME oil pre-Shale. AU doesn't have a choice but to cooperate with US because “implications”.<p>So here we are. Overdue capabilities for AU, assuming aquisition doesn't fall through. At least 8 nuke subs that AU has even less experience building, which likely will overshoot planned delivery by 10+ years, and go massively over budget, of which 2-3 can be deployed at once. Worse case scenario, project goes nowhere, PRC gets the crown jewels of SSN technology via espionage while having shipyard designed to launch 2 nuke subs per year.
I like this idea from a purely environmental perspective (ignoring the strategic reasons, which I leave for others). It's about time we stopped that ridiculous plan to modify an already nuclear design for diesel-electric. Not to mention how poorly the delivery was performing. However small difference a nuclear submarine fleet would bring, we urgently need to wean ourselves off polluting energy and start being progressive again.
I'm sure people have said this countless time but here it is: Cold War mentality.<p>I'm from a small country. You would think that countries like us tend to have to pick a side but since a very young age, in our textbook, we're taught that the world is no longer the place it used to be and there are no such things as friends nor enemies.<p>Honestly all the propaganda from the US about Russia caring so much and always tries to undermine them and how their politics are fuelled by their policies toward "the enemy", whether that's China or the Middle East, sounds stupid to me.<p>Australia is the same, all they do is whining about China instead of, you know, build a stronger country.