Technology unravels strategy and the weakness of AUKUS

Derek Woolner, David Glynne Jones, June 11, 2026, https://pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/06/technology-unravels-strategy-and-the-weakness-of-aukus/

Developments in technology, their consequences for strategic policy and challenges in sustaining Australia’s submarine warfare capability are the ultimate challenges to AUKUS.

We argue elsewhere that advances in submarine battery technologies will have changed the prospects for regional undersea warfare at about the time that Australia’s first AUKUS nuclear powered submarines (SSN) become operational. The consequences should influence Australia’s national security policy and the ultimate usefulness of AUKUS.

The demise of submarines has been predicted regularly. Yet in the face of modern military systems they remain less vulnerable than surface warships. Nonetheless, traditional anti-submarine warfare (ASW) sensors are being enhanced by increasingly powerful digital analysis. More nations are deploying fixed submerged sensor systems and surveillance is being extended by autonomous underwater gliders, autonomous surface craft like BlueBottle and uncrewed underwater vessels (UUV). Together with intelligent mines, high performance light metal battery (LMB) powered small submarines and, before long, killer UUVs, submarine missions will become more difficult.

Just how, and to what degree, broadly depends on who’s searching, why they’re searching and what they can do about it. And the latter need not be overtly hostile.

When Indonesia eventually deploys its submarine detection system, covert passage between the Indian and Pacific Oceans will become problematic. Submerged transit is possible at only two points in the Indonesian archipelago, with Lombok Strait preferred for the large 10,000 tonne future Australian SSNs. Disseminating the data on such transits could compromise covert deployment and complicate RAN missions. Were Indonesia ever prompted to close the Strait, submarines based at HMAS Stirling would become an exclusively Indian Ocean flotilla.

The response of China is a completely different matter. With national security objectives that can be supported by a maritime strategy of sea denial, China continues to methodically improve its Yuan class conventional submarine force, projected to be 46 vessels by 2040. It has the technology and shipbuilding capacity to quickly add small all-electric SSE coastal submarines and a range of UUVs. At some time before 2040, China will have the capacity to close much of the South China Sea to hostile submarines (and hence other naval activity).

This situation effectively unravels a central element of Australia’s National Defence Strategy of 2026 (p.26) which postulates a strategy of denial but envisages a need for Australia to influence strategic developments in its region. However, with the strategy relying on a US-backed balance of power, with that country deeply divided on policy and declining in capacity, this is not a prospect of any certainty.

By the mid-2050s, with the full SSN fleet of eight enough to regularly deploy only two boats, the RAN will not be able to contest China’s naval dominance nor tangibly increase influence with regional partners. Consequently, the prime operational advantage of an SSN – speed of long distance passage – will be of lesser relevance. There will be fewer forward hostile deployments (such as in support of Taiwan) from which an RAN submarine could be expected to return. Australians don’t know if this is currently an objective of AUKUS, but there are no public operational objectives that would justify the specific choice of nuclear power for the nation’s submarine fleet.

Despite Chinese dominance of the seas north of Indonesia, the environment of Australia’s northern archipelagic approaches will continue as a basis for a strategy of denial. Australia has innovative companies producing the equipment needed to apply this strategy to undersea warfare. But geography and equipment do not make a strategy without a concept for their employment.

Previously the RAN’s concept of submarine operations (CONOPS) was to deploy forward to the approaches of an opponent’s ports to effectively engage targets. This CONOPS has been strong enough to disqualify off-the-shelf designs from RAN acquisition programs and thus justify expenditure on RAN ‘specified’ submarines.

Deemphasising forward deployment and developing a concept for defence of an archipelagic front stretching over 6,000 kilometres will be challenging. It will be possible by focusing on control of various choke points, which indicates a continuing role for subsea warfare. It is, however, unlikely to be based on one submarine in the Indian Ocean and another in the Coral Sea.

The most appropriate mix of crewed, automatic and autonomous systems needed to deny access to hostile naval forces will be identified over time. However, it would seem that the lower acquisition cost and higher availability of something like the SSE designs we anticipate being available by the 2040s would prove more appropriate than anything emerging from AUKUS, at the least allowing for a greater number of more deployable vessels.

Reaching an outcome on such deliberations will require research, trialing and experience. Much of this will have to be obtained on RAN submarines at sea. Despite government and public discourse focusing on AUKUS, in reality, the Navy’s existing Collins class submarines will remain the RAN’s most numerous crewed submarine into the 2040s. Sustaining the RAN’s future direction will depend largely on sea days onboard a Collins submarine.

To accommodate the ponderous acquisition programs for both the Virginia class ‘interim’ and the AUKUS class SSNs, each of the Collins will have a Life-of-Type-Extension (LOTE) to allow an extra 10 years of service, beginning from 2028. The LOTE will enable four of the Collins to serve into the 2040s, with the last retiring just before the end of that decade.

The LOTE has recently been reduced to little more than a maintenance and rectification program, abandoning plans for new diesel generators and propulsion motors. The boats will retain their existing lead acid battery (LAB) technology.

Consequently the first Collins LOTE will be barely survivable and later boats, faced by LMB-equipped opponents with up to four times the submerged performance, will be dangerously obsolete. If retention of the existing propulsion machinery allows inattention to critical machinery platforms, the critically important stealthiness of the Collins design could be compromised. Even in a training role, the limited capacity of the Collins LAB energy system will struggle to support the development of the increasingly complex digital systems associated with AUKUS Pillar II programs.

Conceiving AUKUS as the only option for RAN submarine acquisition appears to have made Australian policy makers uncurious about the future undersea warfare environment. Current policies, particularly those concerning the Collins LOTE, appear to offer no corrective. It is this weakness that could ultimately see AUKUS sidelined by the imperatives of technological change.