The contract, worth $276 million ($US197 million), has been awarded to US Navy contractor General Dynamics Electric Boat. Construction will take place at a Connecticut shipyard, covered by the Labor government's first down payment of $4.2 billion ($US3 billion). The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that nuclear-powered submarine capabilities would be transferred from the United States to Australia.
The 2021 AUKUS pact is designed to counter China's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific. It involves Australia acquiring Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the US by 2032. However, the alliance relies on the US building enough defence vessels itself before some are sent to Australia. The US Navy has set targets to almost double construction to 2.33 boats per year, but data revealed the pace of production has dropped to 1.1 boats per year due to construction delays.
We keep forking out money for submarines I'm definitely not going to live to see, and I don't know if young people will live to see them ever arrive.
Critics question Australia's strategic dependence on the US. According to Daily Mail - News, international politics expert Professor Mark Beeson described the contract as epitomising Australia's dependence on American productivity and possibly the worst investment Australia's ever made. Opposition industry spokesman Andrew Hastie said Australia incurred 'strategic trade-offs' in doubling down on its alliance with Washington. 'We forgot the hard lessons of war, and outsourced our security to the United States,' Hastie said. He added that it has cost Australia sovereign capabilities like a robust defence industry and strategic freedom.
It's because, famously, the Americans can't build as many as they would like, or consider they need. There's going to be no spare capacity for these submarines.
I think it's possibly the worst investment Australia's ever made in anything, but particularly in defence material.
It is doubling down on something that was a bad idea to start with.
The only way to get a more credible-looking outcome for AUKUS is by continuing to supply the Americans and eventually the British with lots of loot to rebuild shipyards and increase the production line for these submarines.
If and when submarines ever did arrive, they would be undoubtedly redundant, overtaken by cheap and cheerful anti-submarine drone technology.
If we build this base, it will undoubtedly be a prime nuclear target, because who wouldn't want to take out a couple of nuclear-armed submarines from America.
We forgot the hard lessons of war, and outsourced our security to the United States.
It has cost us sovereign capabilities like a robust defence industry, and our strategic freedom of ac