Aukus will cost Australia $368bn. What if there was a better, cheaper defence strategy?
Jonathan Barrett and Patrick Commins, Guardian, 15 June 25
As questions swirl around the nuclear submarine deal, some strategists are pushing for an alternative, ‘echidna’ policy that focuses less on offensive capability
As Australia’s nuclear submarine-led defence strategy threatens to fray, strategists say it’s time to evaluate whether the military and economic case of the tripartite deal still stacks up.
The defence tie-up with the US and UK, called Aukus, is estimated to cost up to $368bn over 30 years, although the deal could become even more costly should Donald Trump renegotiate terms to meet his “America first” agenda.
The current deal, struck in 2021, includes the purchase of three American-made nuclear-powered submarines, the construction of five Australian-made ones, as well as sustaining the vessels and associated infrastructure.
Such a price tag naturally comes with an opportunity cost paid by other parts of the defence force and leaves less money to address societal priorities, such as investing in regional diplomacy and accelerating the renewable energy transition.
This choice is often described as one between “guns and butter”, referring to the trade-off between spending on defence and social programs.
Luke Gosling, Labor’s special envoy for defence and veterans’ affairs, last year described Aukus as “Australia’s very own moonshot” – neatly capturing both the risks and the potential benefits.
Opportunity cost
Sam Roggeveen, director of the Lowy Institute’s international security program, says there are cheaper ways to replicate submarine capabilities, which are ultimately designed to sink ships and destroy other submarines.
These include investing in airborne capabilities, more missiles, maritime patrol aircraft and naval mines, he says.
“If you imagine a world without Aukus, it does suddenly free up a massive portion of the defence budget,” says Roggeveen.
“That would relieve a lot of pressure, and would actually be a good thing for Australia.”
Roggeveen coined the term “echidna strategy” to argue for an alternative, and cheaper, defence policy for Australia that does not include nuclear-powered submarines.
Like the quill-covered mammal, the strategy is designed to build defensive capabilities that make an attack unpalatable for an adversary. The strategy is meant to radiate strength but not aggression.
“The uncertainty that Aukus introduces is that we are buying submarines that actually have the capabilities to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles on to an enemy land mass,” says Roggeveen.
“That is an offensive capability that’s ultimately destabilising. We should be focusing on defensive capabilities only.”
Those advocating for a more defensive approach, including Albert Palazzo from the University of New South Wales, point out that it is more costly to capture ground than it is to hold it…………………..
Social cost
…………………..Saul Eslake, an independent economist, says higher defence spending is coming at a time of substantially higher demands on the public purse across a range of areas, from aged care, to disability services and childcare………………………..
Political cost
While expert opinion divides over whether nuclear-powered submarines are the best strategic option for Australia’s long-term defence strategy, there’s a separate question over whether the submarines will be delivered……………………………….. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/15/aukus-will-cost-australia-368bn-what-if-there-was-a-better-cheaper-defence-strategy?fbclid=IwY2xjawLHNQpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFyMEl3YVlwYXlzdE5HaUFzAR7t2VVyRqzmPs-WhsC_dhvz9susqUAqTdxsascsmPSKfkWBQ93MS4DJ24z_9Q_aem_lR5byRgSjQDcUUkIsx-k0w
Australia backs US strikes on Iran while urging return to diplomacy
Australia’s explicit expression of support for the strikes goes a step further than allies including the UK, Canada and New Zealand
By political reporter Tom Crowley ABC News 23 June 25
In short:
Australia has given its support to US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities but has repeated calls for de-escalation to avoid a wider war.
Penny Wong said Australia had not received a request for assistance and declined to speculate on how any request would be met.
What’s next?
A National Security Meeting was held in Canberra on Monday morning.
Australia has given its support to US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities but has repeated calls for de-escalation to avoid a wider war.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday Australia was in favour of action to prevent Iran getting a nuclear weapon, echoing comments made earlier on Monday by Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
“The world has long agreed Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon, and we support action to prevent that. That is what this is,” the PM told reporters.
The government initially adopted a more cautious tone, declining to give its explicit support.
Senator Wong said Australia had not received a request for assistance and emphasised the US action was “unilateral” when asked whether Pine Gap, a shared military facility, had been engaged.
While the PM and foreign minister declined to speculate on the response to any such request, Mr Albanese said Australia was “deeply concerned” about the prospect of escalation, placing the onus on Iran.
“We want to see diplomacy, dialogue and de-escalation … Iran had an opportunity to comply, they chose not to and there have been consequences of that,” he said.
Earlier, Senator Wong cited a UN watchdog finding that Iran had acquired enriched uranium at “almost military level”.
“The key question for the international community is what happens next … It’s obviously a very precarious, risky and dangerous moment the world faces,” she said.
The National Security Committee, comprised of key ministers, met in Canberra this morning.
Australia’s explicit expression of support for the strikes goes a step further than allies including the UK, Canada and New Zealand, although all three countries have emphasised the risk of Iran gaining nuclear weapons.
Opposition supports strike, Greens opposed
The Coalition supported the strikes on Sunday and also says it does not want further war, but has put the onus on Iran to negotiate peace.
“We want to see Iran come to the negotiating table to verify where that 400 kilos of enriched uranium is,” Andrew Hastie told ABC Radio National……………………………………..
Dave Sharma, a Liberal senator and former Australian ambassador to Israel, said the government’s response was “underwhelming and perplexing” on Sunday and that support for the strikes “should be a straightforward position for Australia to adopt”.
The Greens are against the strike, with defence spokesperson David Shoebridge calling Donald Trump a “warmonger” and demanding Australia clarify it will not get involved.
“You cannot bomb your way to peace … and the people who are always going to pay the price are the ordinary people on the street,” he said.
……………………………………………….. Five Eyes partners respond
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to Mr Trump via phone, emphasising the “grave risk” of Iran’s nuclear program and placing the onus on Iran “returning to the negotiating table as soon as possible”, according to a readout of the call.
A joint statement from the UK, France, Germany and Italy urged Iran not to “take any further action that could destabilise the region” but did not include an explicit position on the strike.
The New Zealand government has “acknowledged” the strike, and called for diplomacy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters saying “ongoing military action in the Middle East is extremely worrying”.
Canadian PM Mark Carney said Iran should not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon and that the US strike “was designed to alleviate that threat”, but stopped short of explicitly endorsing it and called for “all parties” to return to the negotiating table. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-23/australia-backs-us-strikes/105448088
AUKUS collapse offers Australia the chance to navigate an innovative future.
(Cartoon by Mark David / @MDavidCartoons)
By Alan Austin | 23 June 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/aukus-collapse-offers-australia-the-chance-to-navigate-an-innovative-future,19859
Donald Trump’s likely abandonment of the AUKUS contract offers the Albanese Government a welcome reprieve from a costly folly, as Alan Austin reports.
THE USA LOOKS LIKE it is abandoning the controversial AUKUS contract signed by the miserably inept Morrison Government in its dying days.
The corrupt and incompetent U.S. President Donald Trump wants out. He has proven to the world that the only projects he strongly supports are those that enrich himself and his companies directly. Australia, with other Westminster nations, refuses to pay direct bribes to individual national leaders — as it should.
Now showing advanced cognitive decline and a failing grip on reality, Trump has effectively signalled the contract’s demise by calling for a formal review by Defence Under Secretary Elbridge Colby. Colby has long been a vocal AUKUS critic and will probably recommend cancellation.
Sound reasons to abandon AUKUS
The first pillar of the deal between Australia, the UK and the USA is for the Americans to supply Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines for its defence, starting with three Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s.
The second pillar is collaboration between the three nations on new military technology. These include undersea capabilities, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and advanced cyber, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic capabilities.
Colby’s argument against the AUKUS deal is simply that the USA doesn’t have enough submarines for their own needs and can’t build them fast enough to have any to spare in the foreseeable future. That is true. The current U.S. Administration is the least competent in its history.
Other AUKUS critics have more compelling reasons for its abandonment. The most cogent of these, articulated by former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull and others, is that nuclear subs supplied by the USA will necessarily be operated by American personnel and automatically commandeered by the U.S. military in the event of hostilities between the USA and China, over Taiwan or any other conflict.
It would be disastrous for Australia’s relationship with China and other nations, Keating argues, to be dragged into such a war.
Resources lost forever
If AUKUS collapses, Australia has little chance of getting back the billions already invested.
Among the countless failures of the monumentally inept Morrison Coalition Government was leaving out of the contract any penalties for defaults.
In any event, the lifelong criminal grifter currently running the White House has never felt obliged to fulfil contracts, however legally or morally binding.
The losses to Australia as a result of the incompetence of the Coalition from 2014 to 2022 now amount to hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars, including the billions paid out for AUKUS so far.
These simply have to be accepted as penalties citizens must bear for the abject stupidity of those who elected such a hopeless rabble to try to run the country.
Visionary naval future
If AUKUS fails and Australians write off the losses, they can then grasp this as an opportunity to pursue advantageous alternatives.
The future of underwater naval warfare increasingly appears to be in unmanned underwater vessels (UUVs). Australia is well-placed to build these for its own purposes and then sell them to regional neighbours and beyond.
This may seem a quantum leap for shipbuilding in Australia, but it can be accomplished.
Australia proved to the world it could build the Collins-class submarines during the Hawke/Keating period and has successfully procured other military ordnance since then.
In its first term, the Albanese Government began its investment in small UUVs. Australian marine vessel manufacturer Anduril Australia, a subsidiary of the American Anduril Industries, is already building a modest UUV which it calls Ghost Shark.
Although technical information is restricted, military monitor The War Zone has revealed details of the partnership involving Anduril, the Royal Australian Navy (R.A.N.) and the Defence Science and Technology Group.
A Ghost Shark prototype, according to The War Zone, has a 3D-printed exterior, weighs 2.8 tons, is 5.6 metres long and can operate at a depth of 6,000 metres for ten days. Advanced AI technology enables autonomous operations.
The R.A.N. hopes to get three UUVs suitable for both military and non-military missions between 2025 and 2028.
Challenges for the future, beyond Ghost Shark, are for vessels capable of higher speeds, deeper dives, longer missions, greater stealth and more advanced assignments, including accurate delivery of lethal weapons.
If Australia’s current submarines can be replaced with technologically advanced UUVs, costs will be much lower and risks to personnel dramatically reduced. This may allow Australia to cut military spending overall.
Potential partnerships
Australia does not have the resources to build UUVs alone. Just as the Collins-class submarines were built collaboratively with Swedish shipbuilder Kockums, new ventures will require partners.
Possibilities, besides American firms like Anduril, are many. Current UUVs in service include Germany’s Greyshark, France’s XLUUV and vessels from Japan and South Korea.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s discussion topics with his Canadian counterpart, Prime Minister Mark Carney, at last week’s G7 meeting included Canada joining AUKUS. That’s another possible partner.
Grounds for optimism
Australia has shipyards in South Australia and the solid experience of designing, building and maintaining the Collins-class submarines from the 1980s to the present.
Australia enjoys the goodwill of all neighbouring nations, has no current engagement in any conflict and sees no threats on the horizon.
Australians have banished the destructive Coalition parties from any chance of forming government for the foreseeable future.
So, to borrow a line from Michael J Fox in The American President, let’s take this 94-seat majority out for a spin and see what it can do.
Out of pocket and stranded: What happens if Trump pulls out of AUKUS | Four Corners Documentary
Trump’s attack on Iran is ‘unconditional surrender’ to Israel
Aaron Maté, Jun 22, 2025, https://www.aaronmate.net/p/trumps-attack-on-iran-is-unconditional?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=166521469&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Shunning the US intelligence consensus, Trump and top principals rely on Israeli fraud to bomb Iran.
Since his election in 2016, Donald Trump’s political opponents have portrayed him as a dangerous, unstable fabulist doing the bidding of a malign, nuclear-armed foreign power.
Having returned to the White House this year, Trump is proving his detractors correct on all counts but one: the location on the map. The rogue state that he’s colluding with — at great peril to the planet — is not Russia, as his most vocal detractors alleged, but Israel.
Israel’s June 13th attack on Iran sabotaged the then-ongoing talks on a new nuclear deal with the United States, and Trump has gone to unprecedented lengths to support its aggression. Trump undercut his own Secretary of State’s claim that Israel had undertaken “unilateral action” by acknowledging that “we knew everything” in advance of what he called a “very successful attack.” Administration officials then disclosed that Trump had previously authorized giving Israel intelligence support for the bombing. Trump then called on Tehran’s 9.8 million residents to evacuate, mused about killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and declared that “we” – meaning Israel – “have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.”
After Iran rejected his demand for “unconditional surrender”, Trump imposed a new deadline of two weeks, only to break it three days later by ordering a US military attack on three Iranian nuclear energy sites, including the deeply buried mountain complex Fordo, which he quickly hailed as a “great success.” Just as with Trump’s diplomacy with Iran, his two-week deadline turns out to have been a ruse whose “goal was to create a situation when everyone wasn’t expecting it,” a senior administration official said.
To wage war on Iran, Trump and his allies have employed the traditional Iraq WMD playbook of ignoring or manipulating the available evidence to fear-monger about a foreign state marked for regime change. Unlike the Iraq war, where the fraudulent case for invading was mostly concocted in-house, Trump has outsourced the job to Israel, while not even pretending to care about public opinion or Congressional approval.
Back in March, the US intelligence community assessed that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon” and “has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program… suspended in 2003.” According to US officials who spoke to the New York Times, “[t]hat assessment has not changed.” Moreover, the US has found that “not only was Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one,” CNN reports, citing four sources.
Whereas Dick Cheney and company went through the trouble of nudging subordinates to fabricate intelligence, including via torture, Trump does not care about seeking their imprimatur. “[M]y intelligence community is wrong,” Trump told reporters on Friday. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that “Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon,” and, if authorized by Ayatollah Khamenei, “it would take a couple weeks to complete the production of that weapon.” In White House meetings, CIA chief John Ratcliffe has argued that Iran is close to a nuclear bomb and that claiming otherwise “would be similar to saying football players who have fought their way to the one-yard line don’t want to score a touchdown,” according to one US official who spoke to CBS News. (After the Iraq war, a “Slam dunk” basketball analogy is no longer available).
If Trump’s intelligence community is “wrong,” who does he think is right? As US officials told the New York Times, the claims from Trump and his circle “echoed material provided by Mossad,” Israel’s intelligence agency. And whereas some in the government, undoubtedly those close to Trump, “find the Israeli estimate credible”, others believe that “Israeli assessments have been colored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to gain American support for his military campaign against Iran.” Moreover, according to multiple officials, “[n]one of the new assessments on the timeline to get a bomb are based on newly collected intelligence,” but instead on “new analysis of existing work.” In other words, Trump is sidelining his own intelligence community to trust a “new analysis” that is based on no new information, just the manipulation of a foreign government.
Trump’s disdain for his own agencies is a particular slight to intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard. “I don’t care what she said,” Trump said this week, referring to Gabbard’s presentation of the US intelligence consensus on Iran in March. “I think they [Iran] were very close to having it.”
Rather than defend the agencies she oversees – and the record she earned challenging previous US-driven regime change deceptions — Gabbard has bent the knee to Trump, and Israel by extension. In a social media post, Gabbard chided “the dishonest media” for taking her March testimony “out of context.” The US, Gabbard now claimed, “has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly.” Gabbard also shared video of that March testimony, without addressing the contradictory fact that it does not include any mention of her newfound claim that Iran has the capability to produce a nuclear bomb “within weeks to months.”
Gabbard is engaging in disingenuous wordplay. If Israel tells America that Iran “can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks”, then yes, American intelligence now “has” that intelligence. That doesn’t mean it is true, or that American intelligence believes it, which it does not. A US official familiar with the available record on Iran tells me that there is no US intelligence assessment concluding that Iran is “weeks” away from building a nuclear weapon. Gabbard is only saying, therefore, that the US intelligence community has received “intelligence” from Israel, without mentioning that the IC does not actually endorse it.
Moreover, pretend for a moment that the Israeli claim is correct. Gabbard’s caveat of “if they decide to finalize” is an acknowledgment that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon. That’s because Iran has said it does not want one, and is willing to commit to that in a binding agreement — the one they were negotiating with the US until Trump and Israel sabotaged it, and not for the first time. In fact, as US intelligence officials have also predicted, Trump’s bombing now increases the likelihood that Iran will pursue the nuclear bomb that it has long foresworn. Iran claims to have moved enriched uranium stockpiles prior to the US bombing, which preserves its capacity to weaponize.
Trump and Israel insisted, in the president’s words, on “unconditional surrender”: capitulation to maximalist US-Israeli demands that Iran end its uranium enrichment program, which it is entitled to have under the Non-Proliferation Treaty; and that it limit its arsenal of missiles. In other words, Trump and Netanyahu demanded that Iran agree to abandon its sovereignty and right to self-defense just as it is under attack from US-backed Israeli aggression; and all while US-backed Israeli mass murder in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank continues unimpeded.
Iranian officials did not surrender. Trump, by contrast, cannot say the same. By enabling its bombing campaign, parroting its deceptions, and now going to war against Iran on its behalf, Trump has already offered an unconditional surrender to Israel — a betrayal that grows more dangerous by the day.
Why Richard Marles Backs the U.S. War Machine
Since becoming Defence Minister, Richard Marles has overseen a shift that aligns Australia more closely with U.S. military goals than ever before.
Richard Marles backs the U.S. military, not just with rhetoric, but with billions in public funds diverted from services Australians urgently need.
Richard Marles is a senior figure in the Labor Right, a faction increasingly indistinguishable from the Liberal Party on core issues such as defence, foreign policy, and trade.
20 June 2025 AIMN Editorial, By Denis Hay
Description
Richard Marles backs the U.S. military power on Australian soil. Discover how it risks our sovereignty, and what citizens can do to reclaim it.
Introduction – A Quiet Coup Over Australia’s Defence
Location: Tindal, Northern Territory. Action: A U.S. B-52 bomber roars overhead. Thoughts: “Are we a launchpad for war?” Emotions: Unease, betrayal.
It’s 2025. As Defence Minister Richard Marles smiles beside a Pentagon official, another defence deal is signed. Few Australians notice. Even fewer understand its implications. Our government says it’s about ‘defending democracy.’ But whose democracy, and against what threat?
While China is still our biggest trading partner, we’re warned of its menace. Meanwhile, U.S. troops, bombers, and weapons quietly embed themselves deeper into our soil. This isn’t protection, it’s occupation by consent.
How did we end up here? And why is it that Richard Marles backs the U.S. military over Australia’s sovereign interests?
Problem: The Erosion of Australian Sovereignty
A Defence Strategy Written in Washington
Since becoming Defence Minister, Richard Marles has overseen a shift that aligns Australia more closely with U.S. military goals than ever before. The 2021 USFPI agreement expanded joint military operations.
Billions have since been given to help U.S. base upgrades in Darwin and Tindal, alongside hosting U.S. nuclear-capable planes.
This is yet another example of how Richard Marles backs the U.S. military agenda, prioritising American strategic interests over national independence.
“It’s not just alliance cooperation, it’s dependence,” says defence analyst Dr. Alison Broinowski.
The Permanent U.S. Footprint
- U.S. bases in Australia: Pine Gap, Robertson Barracks, and now expanded northern airfields. Ref: How US Military Bases in Australia Threaten Our Future & How to Remove Them
- Rotating forces: Thousands of U.S. Marines cycle through annually, training for potential regional conflicts.
- Infrastructure: Funded by Australian public money for U.S. strategic benefit.
Public Money, Private Empire
Under Marles’ leadership, defence spending reached 2.4% of GDP in 2024. That’s over $60 billion, more than education or climate resilience combined. But this isn’t public defence, it’s public subsidy for the U.S. military-industrial complex.
This is precisely how Richard Marles backs the U.S. military, not just with rhetoric, but with billions in public funds diverted from services Australians urgently need.
The Manufactured ‘China Threat’
A Convenient Villain
There is no evidence that China poses a military threat to Australia. Defence intelligence reports confirm no plans for invasion or aggression. Yet headlines scream of ‘Chinese expansionism,’ fuelling fear and compliance.
Who Benefits?
- Weapons contractors profit from panic.
- U.S. hegemony is preserved through Australian complicity.
- Political careers thrive on appearing ‘tough on China.’
“The U.S. has surrounded China with 200+ military bases,” notes historian John Pilger. “China has none outside its borders. Who’s the aggressor here?”
Real Consequences for Australians
Story: Emily, a nurse in Perth, struggles to afford rent. Her hospital is understaffed. Meanwhile, Marles commits $368 billion for nuclear submarines, years away from delivery, if ever.
“Why do we always find money for war, but never for nurses?” Emily asks.
Because Richard Marles backs the U.S. military, while ignoring the suffering of frontline workers like Emily.
The Labor Right: A Party Captured by Foreign and Corporate Interests
Richard Marles and the Rise of Labor’s Conservative Core
Richard Marles is a senior figure in the Labor Right, a faction increasingly indistinguishable from the Liberal Party on core issues such as defence, foreign policy, and trade.
Rather than upholding the Labor tradition of peace, workers’ rights, and democratic independence, the right faction embraces military alliances and market orthodoxy.
Their influence is evident in Labor’s full-throated support for AUKUS, Marles’ open enthusiasm for U.S. military integration is no coincidence – Richard Marles backs the U.S. military model as central to Labor’s right-faction ideology, and the suppression of internal dissent from more progressive voices within the party.
“Marles speaks more like a U.S. Pentagon spokesperson than an Australian minister,” notes a former Labor policy adviser.
How the Right Faction Is Reshaping Labor
This shift reflects how Richard Marles backs the U.S. military, pushing Labor further from its peace-promoting roots.
Suppresses internal debate on AUKUS, Palestine, and climate.- Aligns with corporate donors, including arms manufacturers.
- Stifles progressive legislation, watering down meaningful reforms.
The result? A Labor Party that once represented workers and peace is now compromised and cautious, often at the expense of sovereignty and social justice.
A Peaceful, Sovereign Path Forward
Reclaiming Foreign Policy Independence
- End the U.S. military presence on Australian soil.
- Cancel or renegotiate treaties that erode autonomy.
- Prioritise diplomacy over deterrence.
Invest in Public Needs, Not Foreign Conflicts
Redirect defence billions to:
Fully fund Medicare.- End homelessness.
- Provide free tertiary education.
Australia, as a sovereign nation with currency-issuing power, can fund peace just as easily as it funds war. The real limitation is a lack of political will, not a shortage of money.
Learn from Global Examples
- Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948. Today, it ranks among the world’s happiest and healthiest nations.
- Finland and Switzerland remain militarily neutral but are globally respected.
“We must stop being a staging post for other nations’ wars,” says Senator David Shoebridge.
Marles, the U.S., and Our Crossroads
For decades, Australia walked a delicate line, partner to the U.S., yet proudly sovereign. That line is vanishing.
Richard Marles has accelerated Australia’s subservience to U.S. military interests under the guise of strategic cooperation. But what we face is not defence, it’s deterrence at the cost of independence.
This is the inevitable outcome when Richard Marles backs the U.S. military without accountability or public consent.
And it’s happening with full ministerial approval, Richard Marles backs the U.S. military posture without public scrutiny or debate.
It’s time Australians asked: Who does our government really serve?
Q&A – Reader Questions Answered…………………………. https://theaimn.net/why-richard-marles-backs-the-u-s-war-machine/
Cross your fingers, Australia, and hope the AUKUS deal collapses
he Americans agreed to the deal because they saw it to be in their strategic interest, not ours. As then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell observed (indiscreetly) last year, “we have them locked in now for the next 40 years.”
All that AUKUS and its associated alliance commitments have done for Australia is paint more targets on our back.
The crazy irony is that we are spending huge sums to build a new capability intended to defend us from military threats that are most likely to arise simply because we have that capability
The U.S. sub purchase was a bad deal then and it makes even less sense now.
By Gareth Evans, Project Syndicate, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/06/18/world/australia-should-hope-for-aukuss-collapse/
MELBOURNE –
The AUKUS partnership, the 2021 deal whereby the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to provide Australia with at least eight nuclear-propelled submarines over the next three decades, has come under review by the U.S. Defense Department.
The prospect of its collapse has generated predictable handwringing among those who welcomed the deepening alliance, and especially among those interested in seeing Australia inject billions of dollars into underfunded, underperforming American and British naval shipyards. But in Australia, an AUKUS breakdown should be a cause for celebration.
After all, there has never been any certainty that the promised subs would arrive on time. The U.S. is supposed to supply three or possibly five Virginia-class submarines from 2032, with another five newly designed SSN-AUKUS-class subs (built mainly in the U.K.) coming into service from the early 2040s. But the U.S. and the U.K.’s industrial capacity is already strained, owing to their own national submarine-building targets and both have explicit opt-out rights.
Some analysts assume that the Defense Department review is just another Trumpian extortion exercise, designed to extract an even bigger financial commitment from Australia. But while comforting to some Australians (though not anyone in the Treasury), this interpretation is misconceived.
There are very real concerns in Washington that even with more Australian dollars devoted to expanding shipyard capacity, the U.S. will not be able to increase production to the extent required to make available three — let alone five — Virginia-class subs by the early 2030s. Moreover, Elbridge Colby, the U.S. under-secretary of defense for policy who is leading the review, has long been a skeptic of the project and he will not hesitate to put America’s own new-boat target first.
Even in the unlikely event that everything falls smoothly into place — from the transfers of Virginia-class subs to the construction of new British boats, with no human-resource bottlenecks or cost overruns — Australia will be waiting decades for the last boat to arrive. But given that our existing geriatric Collins-class fleet is already on life support, this timeline poses a serious challenge. How will we address our capability gap in the meantime?
Cost-benefit analysis should have killed the project from the outset. But in their eagerness to embrace the deal, political leaders on both sides of parliament failed to review properly what was being proposed. Even acknowledging the greatly superior speed and endurance of nuclear-powered subs and accepting the heroic assumption that their underwater undetectability will remain immune from technological challenge throughout their lifetimes, the final fleet size seems hardly fit for the purpose of national defense.
Given the usual operating constraints, Australia would have only two such subs deployed at any one time. Just how much intelligence gathering, archipelagic chokepoint protection, sea-lane safeguarding or even deterrence at a distance will be possible under such conditions? Moreover, the program’s eye-watering cost will make it difficult to acquire the other capabilities that are already reshaping the nature of modern warfare: state-of-the-art drones, missiles, aircraft and cyber defense.
The remaining reason for believing, as former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating put it, that an American opt-out “will be the moment Washington saves Australia from itself,” concerns AUKUS’s negative implications for Australia’s sovereignty. The Americans agreed to the deal because they saw it to be in their strategic interest, not ours. As then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell observed (indiscreetly) last year, “we have them locked in now for the next 40 years.”
It defies credibility to believe that the U.S. would transfer such a sensitive technology to us — with all the associated emphasis on the “interchangeability” of our fleets and new basing arrangements in Australia — unless it could avail itself of these subs in a future war. I have had personal ministerial experience of being a junior U.S. ally in a hot conflict situation — the first Gulf War in 1991 — and my recollections are not pretty.
Alongside the Pine Gap satellite communications and signals intelligence facility — which has always been a bull’s-eye — one can add Perth’s Stirling submarine base, the Northern Territory, with its U.S. Marine and B-52 bases and possibly a future east-coast submarine base.
The crazy irony is that we are spending huge sums to build a new capability intended to defend us from military threats that are most likely to arise simply because we have that capability — and using it to support the U.S., without any guarantee of support in return should we ever need it.
If the AUKUS project does collapse, it would arguably still be possible for Australia to acquire replacements for its aging submarine fleet within a reasonable time frame — and probably at less cost, while retaining real sovereign control — by purchasing off-the-shelf technology elsewhere. One can even imagine us going back to France, which was snubbed in the AUKUS deal, and making a bid for its new-generation Suffren-class nuclear-powered sub.
But a better defense option may simply be to recognize that the latest revolution in military technology is real and that our huge continent and maritime surroundings will be better protected by a combination of self-managed air, missile, underwater and cyber capabilities than by a handful of crewed submarines. There is no better time to start thinking outside the U.S. alliance box.
Gareth Evans was Australia’s foreign minister (1988-1996), president of the International Crisis Group (2000-2009) and chancellor of the Australian National University (2010-2019). © Project Syndicate, 2025
PETITION: Launch a Parliamentary Inquiry into AUKUS
Australia has an opportunity to get out of the AUKUS security pact. We should take it. https://nb.australiainstitute.org.au/aukus_parliamentary_inquiry_now
The Trump Administration has announced a review of AUKUS, joining the UK in reviewing the joint security pact. Australia now has a real chance to escape this disastrous deal, which has not been properly scrutinised by the Australian Parliament.
AUKUS ties us ever closer to an increasingly volatile and aggressive America.
We ask the Albanese Government to prioritise Australia’s interests and security, and to join the UK and the US Governments in undertaking an independent parliamentary inquiry into the AUKUS security pact.
✍️ Add your name to the petition
Australians already support an parliamentary inquiry into the future of AUKUS.
Recent polling by the Australia Institute found a majority (57%) of Australians support putting the deal before a parliamentary inquiry, with half (54%) of Australians wanting a more independent foreign policy over a closer alliance with the United States.
An earlier poll found more Australians consider Donald Trump a greater threat to world peace than both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
For too long, Australian foreign and security policy has been hidden behind closed doors – which is why we get disastrous, anti-democratic deals like AUKUS in the first place.
AUKUS will not make Australia safer. It makes Australia more vulnerable, and compromises our ability to make independent decisions about our own security.
Australia has already handed over a AU$800 million deposit of the estimated $368 billion cost of AUKUS. But we can fill the capability gap left by AUKUS. And we can invest in the things that really do make Australia safer.
We call on the Albanese Government to establish an urgent parliamentary inquiry into the AUKUS security pact.
Going to war with China will be an unequivocal disaster for Australia
Perhaps the Honourable Minister should also be and remain quiet – or better still be removed from his portfolio – because he is doing nothing for the Labor cause; and seems to be actively attempting to reduce Labor’s chance at a second term. He should unequivocally realise that if Australia goes to war the Liberal mantra will become, ‘this is on you Labor, you dragged us into this war and it is up to the LNP to get us out.’
the US will not place any of its assets at risk in order to defend Australia, this should be fundamentally and clearly understood by the people of Australia.
19 June 2025 AIMN Editorial, By Dr Strobe Driver https://theaimn.net/going-to-war-with-china-will-be-an-unequivocal-disaster-for-australia/
“Up shit creek in a barbed-wire canoe, without a paddle”: The implausible direction Australia’s current Defence Minister is taking the country.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the above mentioned expression it means things are about as bad as they can get; likely to get worse; and are as it stands, a continuum of a disaster.
This is where Australia stands at the moment when examining Australia’s role in the Asia-Pacific; the rise of China; the ‘position’ this is placing Australia in terms of it being a ‘middle power’ in the region; the dependence on the United States of America (US) as an ally; and the way in which the current Defence Minister (the Honourable Richard Marles (MP) is approaching the current and future components of the regional strategic situations.
The spat between former prime minister Keating and the current Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Marles is ongoing and is far too detailed to go into here other than to mention Keating believes Marles has essentially ‘ceded Australia’s sovereignty’ to another country (the US); and Marles wants ‘strategic transparency from China in its regional military build-up’ and of course the well-worn argument that Australia will be dragged into a war should the US-China situation become ‘kinetic’ – in other words the fighting becomes real. So, with this in mind let’s ‘cut to the chase’ and figure out how Australia would actually ‘fair’ in the outbreak of a war with China and utilise some rationale.
First and foremost, and as I have previously stated in my book The Brink of 2036, the US having sought and gained assurance that Australia is its ‘closest ally’ decides it will ‘go after’ China over its retrocession claims on Taiwan and a war breaks out – the question that begs is, what does that make Australia? This makes Australia an enemy of China and therefore, the Chinese military is now legally entitled to strike Australia.
China would veto any and all conversation in the UNSC (as it is a Permanent Five (P5) member) and use all of its legal powers to circumvent any and all United Nations’ debate about its use of force against US allies. Secondly, the US will not place any of its assets at risk in order to defend Australia, this should be fundamentally and clearly understood by the people of Australia. The US may come to Australia’s aid – it will utilise discretion – however, should it be deemed necessary, it will only enter into any and all aspects associated with the protection of Australia when its assets are not at a high risk of destruction/incapacitation. Where does this leave Australia? One could safely argue a dyad: alone, unless the US’ intervenes.
For the purpose of this essay war has been declared and therefore, a perspective is needed.
The most telling perspective is that Australia faces a rising power and bearing in mind China has continued its rise exponentially since circa-2010, as before that one could safely argue its rise was only incremental, and thus, it is now a major regional power – soon to become a global one. Hence, Australia will have become the enemy of an enormously powerful country.
What then, would said country do to its middle-power regional enemy? There are no surprises here as it is being played out by Israel in the Gaza strip; and the Russian Federation in Ukraine and moreover, it is exceedingly visible; and easy-to-understand. As a side issue, though an important one, and just to strike further terror into the hearts of Australians, the US and Russia as members of the P5 have shut down through the power of veto any and all conversation about whether Israel’s incursion into Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are not warranted. One need not even bother to assume what pathway China will take in its war/fight with Australia. With this in mind let’s move towards China’s kinetic tactics on Australia.
As with any war the first things that need to be destroyed are ‘bases and bridges.’ Bases because they house personnel and vital equipment and bridges which essentially refer to anything (not just bridges over a waterway) that equipment can be transported from in order to get ‘to’ a place/location. China with its significant and enormous amount of missiles and the ability to place them through assets (submarines in particular), will fire hundreds of them into Australian assets – some for advantage and some for ‘publicity,’ that is to say, ‘here’s what we can do.’ The former will be RAAF bases, RAN and RAA bases with a single focus on maintenance and repair facilities; and the latter will be major railway lines (the Ghan; Indo-Pacific; and north east coast public lines); and then major highways the Bruce Highway in particular, will be targeted as will the Darwin-Adelaide highway.
As with any war the first things that need to be destroyed are ‘bases and bridges.’ Bases because they house personnel and vital equipment and bridges which essentially refer to anything (not just bridges over a waterway) that equipment can be transported from in order to get ‘to’ a place/location. China with its significant and enormous amount of missiles and the ability to place them through assets (submarines in particular), will fire hundreds of them into Australian assets – some for advantage and some for ‘publicity,’ that is to say, ‘here’s what we can do.’ The former will be RAAF bases, RAN and RAA bases with a single focus on maintenance and repair facilities; and the latter will be major railway lines (the Ghan; Indo-Pacific; and north east coast public lines); and then major highways the Bruce Highway in particular, will be targeted as will the Darwin-Adelaide highway.
As with any war the first things that need to be destroyed are ‘bases and bridges.’ Bases because they house personnel and vital equipment and bridges which essentially refer to anything (not just bridges over a waterway) that equipment can be transported from in order to get ‘to’ a place/location. China with its significant and enormous amount of missiles and the ability to place them through assets (submarines in particular), will fire hundreds of them into Australian assets – some for advantage and some for ‘publicity,’ that is to say, ‘here’s what we can do.’ The former will be RAAF bases, RAN and RAA bases with a single focus on maintenance and repair facilities; and the latter will be major railway lines (the Ghan; Indo-Pacific; and north east coast public lines); and then major highways the Bruce Highway in particular, will be targeted as will the Darwin-Adelaide highway.
The Honourable Defence Minister should cease and desist with his current monologue and political ineptness toward China and should be upfront with the Australian people in what will happen, should we go down this ‘rabbit hole’ of exceptionalism in the region; and yet, willingly yet aimlessly back the US. Australia will become a failed state if we go to war and it is timely to remind the Australian public there are (approximately) as many personnel in the NYPD as there are personnel in the Australian Defence Force.
Perhaps the Honourable Minister should also be and remain quiet – or better still be removed from his portfolio – because he is doing nothing for the Labor cause; and seems to be actively attempting to reduce Labor’s chance at a second term. He should unequivocally realise that if Australia goes to war the Liberal mantra will become, ‘this is on you Labor, you dragged us into this war and it is up to the LNP to get us out.’
The level of political-ineptness and downright political-maladroitness shown by this minister is however nothing new, as Australia seems to have had a cavalcade of utterly hopeless defence ministers over the past three decades. The real problem this time is this one is politically stupid-to-the-core when Australians need astute, articulate and well-defined decision-making.
Meanwhile, China continues to plan its ongoing rise to ‘pax-Sino’ and we have someone at the helm who is plainly and insufferably politically incompetent when there is a dire need to truly understand the milieu of Australia’s defence needs.
‘Punishment phase’ explained: The punishment phase of aerial bombardment is designed to ‘inflict enough pain on enemy civilians to overwhelm their territorial interests’ and in doing so induce surrender, or hasten total defeat. See: Robert Pape. Bombing To Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. New York: Cornell University Press, 1996, 59.
Dr Strobe Driver – Strobe completed his PhD in war studies in 2011 and since then has written extensively on war, terrorism, Asia-Pacific security, the ‘rise of China,’ and issues within Australian domestic politics. Strobe is a recipient of Taiwan Fellowship 2018, MOFA, Taiwan, ROC, and is an adjunct researcher at Federation University.
Lucky We Didn’t Go For Nuclear…
19 June 2025 Rossleigh , https://theaimn.net/lucky-we-didnt-go-for-nuclear/
Regular readers may have noticed that I try and stay out of the Middle East and there’s a good reason for that… apart from the potential Weapons of Mass Destruction which sometimes fall into the hand of people who don’t own the copyright and who won’t pay the USA for bombs, planes, bullets or submarines.
Apparently the Middle East is where modern civilisation started and I fear that it’s where it may en
Anyway, people are very wedded to their particular views and I’d like to say that I’m definitely not taking the sort of view that anyone can accuse me of being anything… I’m completely neutral on all of it and if I use the word “genocide” I’m talking about in general terms and I’m neither being anti-semitic nor anti-Aryan…
When it comes to bombs hitting hospitals – whether it’s in Gaza, Israel or Iran – I blame the country itself for building them too close to the country itself and we must expect a certain amount of collateral damage in any war…
The point I’m trying to make has nothing to do with the Middle East but it’s more do with our own situation in Australia where it was suggested that it would be good to go nuclear in order to generate power…
Now I know some of you are going to try and link this to Iran who are only claiming to build nuclear power stations and we all know that they’ve been on the verge of creating a nuclear bomb since Reagan got the US president role that should have earned him an Oscar, so it’s clear that they must really be on the verge by now and not something that people make up because we don’t like countries that oppress women and gay people… unless they also make movies about how terrible it is to do such a thing and give Oscars to people who play them on…
I mean, look, why would Iran need nuclear power when they have plenty of oil. No, don’t try and make the point that we have plenty of gas and sunshine because John Howard sold our gas for a really good deal and Tony Abbott took our sunshine away and…
I digress! Sorry.
I was just trying to make the point that if we had gone down the nuclear path we’d have never been able to beat New Zealand at anything like cricket again because they would have surely argued that they have a right to defend themselves and that we probably only a few months away from bowling underarm or developing a nuclear weapon and we’d be a legitimate target.
Mm, I am wondering whether anyone would have made some sort of statement arguing that New Zealand had a right to defend itself because it always strikes me that whenever anyone says something like that, one has to wonder who is arguing against it. I mean nobody actually says that people don’t have a right to defend themselves, they just argue that Llap Goch…
Oh, Llap Goch. It was in Monty Python’s “Big Red Book” and it was the Welsh Art of Self Defence which in summary suggested that the best self-defence was attack and that the art of surprise was attack and that the best way to surprise was to attack BEFORE your opponent had even thought of attacking you.
Whatever, if you need your lawyer to tell the jury that you have a right to defend yourself it’s almost like the police have already decided it wasn’t self defence or you wouldn’t be on trial because it’s a generally accepted thing that one has that right and…
Oh, I guess this why you should never take the stand as the defendant!
Warmongering Marles commits Australia to US war against China amid Iran mayhem.
Let’s never forget the truth, that Iran is compliant with its international nuclear reporting; Israel is not. Israel doesn’t even allow the IAEA to check their nuclear facilities, Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, unlike Israel.
It is not the generals emblazoned with their medals who will pay the price if we march off to another worthless American war. It is not the pusillanimous media pundits, nor the preening politicians. It is young Australians who will pay the price.
by Michael West | Jun 17, 2025 | https://michaelwest.com.au/warmongering-marles-commits-australia-to-us-war-against-china-amid-iran-mayhem/
The craven appeasement of Benjamin Netanyahu by Western media and political elites has brought the world to the brink of war. Now Richard Marles says Australia’s part in a US war against China is a fait accompli. Michael West reports.
The closest Deputy PM Richard Marles has come to war may well be a school debating stoush at Geelong Grammar but here he is today, on page 1 of Rupert Murdoch’s warmongering The Australian, committing young Australians to war against China. Should it transpire.
Our major trading partner, which has posed us no threat but buys 40% of our exports and has delivered nothing but prosperity to The Lucky Country.
Given the way things are shaping up in Europe, America and the Middle East, the spectre of World War 3 has never loomed so large. This morning Donald Trump warned Iranians to evacuate Tehran, the capital and home to 10 million people. Now there are reports of Trump seeking executive orders to invade.
There is little doubt that the Neville Chamberlains in Western governments and media, these sapless appeasers of the political and media elites, who have supported ‘our friend Israel’ and its demonic leadership of genocidaires, are culpable for the deaths of thousands (in Gaza and the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and now Iran). They are guilty of genocide, the world’s most egregious crime, and now Israel’s attacks on Iran, in a world daily edging closer to WW3.
They could have stopped this. Cowed by Israel money and the fear of being called antisemitic, they didn’t. Who loses this? Everybody, Israel included. The first casualty of Israel’s unprovoked assault on Iran last week was a child, buried under rubble.
It is Western appeasement of the Netanyahu government which has led to this; principally the US, UK and Germany, with Australia a bit player albeit with blood dripping from its hands.
Sucked in by Benjamin Netanyahu, again, sucked in by the Israel propaganda of Iran’s nuclear program, world mainstream media again – the very people who fell for the ’40 babies beheaded’ and mass rapes of October 7 – are now running Israel’s ‘regime change’ narrative.
Plus ca change
We’ve seen it before: in Vietnam the ‘domino theory’, in Iraq the fabled WMD which turned regime change when that was found out. “Liberty, freedom and democracy” they cried, after Netanyahu sold them into that war. A million dead, a spate of world terrorism. Islamic State.
And Afghanistan, whose cause turned from Osama bin Laden to regime change to remove the Taliban. Twenty years later the Taliban were back in office.
These abysmal failures, one after another, and now we’ve got Murdoch again beating the drums of war for an attack on China.
Australia is walking into another disastrous war by kowtowing to the US. AUKUS – the controversial security alliance – has made us less safe, not more safe.
The government of Anthony Albanese, feebly abetted by a warmongering Coalition and media, dead-set scared of what the US will say, or the chicken-hawk Coalition, is wedged … if they don’t go all the way with Donald J.
Real strength is being able to stand up to bullies and make the right decisions, not cravenly cave to the demands of our ‘allies’ carrying out a genocide in Gaza and now destabilising the whole world. The ‘global rules based order’ is a sick joke.
Iran support
And make no mistake, that is what we are doing, destabilising the world. China has said it would back Iran in the face of Israeli aggression, Russia has its own thing going with Ukraine but presumably backs Iran. Pakistan, a neighbour and ally of Iran, says it will nuke Israel if Israel nukes Iran.
North Korea – whose decision to get nukes has been entirely vindicated by Western aggression – backs Iran. It is topsy turvey. In Syria, Israel and the US have installed a puppet regime of former Isis and Al Qaeda types – yes the very terrorists who they funded to commit war crimes are now their allies.
This is an almighty mess, and at its epicentre is Israel which decries the regime in Iran, a country which has not attacked another country in 300 years, a country where, despite an authoritarian government, embraces freedom of religion. Mosques, churches and synagogues are free.
In Palestine and Lebanon, Netanyahu and his cronies have been gleefully bombing mosques and churches. No arabs or Thai workers have been crowding the bomb shelters this week as Israelis scurried for cover from Iran’s retaliatory strikes, crying victimhood. In this apartheid state, bomb shelters are only for Jews.
Plainly, we are on the wrong side, the ‘genocide’. And now we see Richard Marles and his media proxies talking about the threat from China and the inevitability of joining a US war.
As Israel continues to murder dozens of civilians daily under cover of media blackouts, starving and murdering Gazans as they scramble for food – and annexing the West Bank – the war crimes by the US/Israel alliance are legion, too many to be listed here; they are daily.
This morning Israel bombed an Iranian TV station mid-broadcast, unapologetically gloating about it in the media; like the grotesque terrorism of its pager explosives, another war crime, targeting journalists going about their jobs.
Follow the money
Trump, the self-described peacemaker, has lost control. And behind it, if we follow the money is an epic laundering operation which has dragged in the entire political class in the US.
It is quite simple: America sends billions in public money, earned by their taxpayers, to support Israel every year. Israel in turn sends money to its lobby groups such as AIPAC, bribing almost every politician on Capital Hill to support its genocide and deny its daily war crimes, its land theft, rape and torture of prisoners, its unrelenting, barbaric military aggression.
And Australia, we are sending our tributes to these US warmongers via AUKUS for submarines which may never arrive, certainly not in time for this looming war, if it occurs. We can only hope common sense prevails. But when it comes to cajoling Australia into its next useless war, the US only has to pamper one man, and that’s Albo.
War powers reform
We can be thankful it’s not Peter Dutton. But few would put store in Albo to stand up to US pressure. The rub is that, in the UK and US, the decision to go to war is made by a vote of Parliament or Congress. In Australia, there is no vote. It is down to the PM, one man. It’s Albo’s call.
So what can we expect? The warmongers of the media are stepping up their campaigns. We have seen it all before, it will all be about downplaying Israel’s aggression. It will all be about demonising the Iranian regime, driving spurious arguments for regime change as if it is our right to meddle in the affairs of countries which want peace and which have done no wrong.
It will be about the elusive, unfounded threat of Iranian nukes, it will dehumanise Iranians, just like it did the people of Gaza. the machine will do all it can to manufacture consent for war. This – Fox News ‘secret Iranian nuclear weapons site revealed’ – is a taste of things to come.
Iran compliant, Israel not
Let’s never forget the truth, that Iran is compliant with its international nuclear reporting; Israel is not. Israel doesn’t even allow the IAEA to check their nuclear facilities, Iran is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, unlike Israel.
These facts will be dutifully buried in an avalanche of lies and spin but if the world needs regime change, they should start with Israel, not Iran. Somehow Netanyahu has managed to – in his jungle of lies – inveigle the US into war with Iraq and ‘regime change’ in a plethora of countries.
He has trashed the reputation of his country forever, demolished any credibility it might have enjoyed, lost to the Palestinian resistance in Gaza after almost two years, and failed miserably in his two stated aims of ousting Hamas and returning the hostages.
And this despite America and the US deploying more firepower than Nagasaki and Hiroshima, killing and maiming 100s of thousands of civilians. And now starving them to boot.
Still the IDF can’t summon the guts to go down in the tunnels and take Hamas on, mano a mano, preferring instead to frock up in the lingerie of their victims and blithely prance around on social media celebrating their war crimes.
Netanyahu and his cronies, including America, have destroyed Israel through their brutality and stupidity and given rise to antisemitism. While blaming everybody else from peace protestors to Palestinians, they are squarely to blame.
It is not the generals emblazoned with their medals who will pay the price if we march off to another worthless American war. It is not the pusillanimous media pundits, nor the preening politicians. It is young Australians who will pay the price.
Nuclear news this week – NOT the corporate version
Some bits of good news – French Polynesia Just Created The World’s Largest Marine Protected Area. Resurgent tuna and rebounding elephants: the dogged conservation efforts bearing fruit
TOP STORIES.
Refresher On The Rules For Discussing Israeli Wars- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNxx-zNsDBg
Sources: US Will Enter Israel’s War With Iran.
Israel Starts Bombing Iran, IRGC Chief Reported Killed – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMT1c2JHPQ4
‘We Are Preparing for War’ With China ‘Threat’, Says US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLOTTVI_LAA
It’s austerity from Reeves – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwQxdCLjL9s
Miliband’s Sizewell plan in meltdown over potential cost – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/13/2-a-milibands-sizewell-plan-in-meltdown-over-potential-cost/
Climate. How the ‘evil twin’ of the climate crisis is threatening our oceans. Could Britain face a winter ice age? How temperatures could one day plummet due to climate change.
From the archives. Why can’t Iran have nuclear weapons?
AUSTRALIA. AUKUS: A Very Antipodean Stupidity. AUKUS faces bigger tests than Trump’s ‘America first’ review, US and UK experts warn. Group of Australian MP’s Call for AUKUS Inquiry, US launches AUKUS review to ensure it meets Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda.
NUCLEAR ITEMS.
ECONOMICS.
- Cost of Miliband’s nuclear plant doubles to more than £40bn -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/15/2-b1-cost-of-milibands-nuclear-plant-doubles-to-more-than-40bn/
- Another delay for Sizewell C nuclear despite Government 14bn pledge.
- UK pledges £11.5bn of new state funding for Sizewell C nuclear plant -ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/12/1-b1-uk-pledges-11-5bn-of-new-state-funding-for-sizewell-c-nuclear-plant/
- Great British Energy’s budget has been nuked.
- China banned from investing in Sizewell C, energy secretary Ed Miliband vows.
- The World Bank is lifting its decades-long ban on financing nuclear energy… ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/14/1-b1-world-bank-lifts-ban-on-funding-nuclear-energy-in-boost-to-industry/
- European Power Costs Surge on Fresh Fears of French Nuclear Reactor Corrosion.
US suspends export licences for nuclear equipment suppliers selling to China .
| ENERGY. GB Energy handed £2.5bn bill for funding small modular reactors . |
| ENVIRONMENT. Revealed: three tonnes of uranium legally dumped in protected English estuary in nine years |
| ETHICS and RELIGION. The ‘unsustainable’ reason behind who can have nuclear weapons, and who can’t. |
| HISTORY. Securing the nuclear nation, (Russia). |
| LEGAL. Firm fined £26k after worker exposed to radiation at Teesside site. Hinkley Point C | Court rules that nuclear developers must follow environmental information law. Campaigners launch legal challenge against Sizewell C’s ‘secret’ flood defences. |
| MEDIA. Fox News Just Helped Netanyahu Spread The Lie That Iran Tried To Assassinate Trump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzDRij_M05g |
| OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Protect the Lake District Coast and Irish Sea from an Unprecedented Atomic Experiment. Cumbrians receive postal call to back nuke dump democracy petition. NFLAs welcome new group opposed to nuke waste dump in South Copeland. Group protest against Sizewell C ahead of Spending Review. |
| POLITICS. The Spring Statement Combines Austerity with Dangerous Military Spending. Ed Miliband presses the nuclear button for Berkeley. Six years late and £28bn over budget, this project signals disaster for Ed Miliband’s nuclear plansUK taxpayers to spend billions more on Sizewell C nuclear plant._ ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/13/2-b1-uk-taxpayers-to-spend-billions-more-on-sizewell-c-nuclear-plant/ Sizewell C nuclear plant gets £14bn go-ahead from government. GB Energy’s promised £8.3bn budget raided to pay for small nuclear reactors. Lincolnshire council pulls out of nuclear waste disposal siting process. UK Greens react to plans for new nuclear plant at Sizewell. Scotland to prioritise renewable energy over nuclear power. |
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Condemning the Right to Self Defence: Iran’s Retaliation and Israel’s Privilege. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), destroyed by President Trump, would have prevented the current attacks between Israel and Iran . Pacific Rim countries say no to U.S.-China war. |
| SECRETS and LIES. Iran says it will release Israeli nuclear secrets as pressure grows to reimpose sanctions. |
| SPINBUSTER. When did nuclear power become “clean”? |
| URANIUM. Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran– ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/14/1-b1-russia-said-on-wednesday-it-stood-ready-to-remove-highly-enriched-uranium-from-iran/ |
| WASTES. Sizewell C Nuclear not just a waste of money – a waste of time, too! Survey Results Show Tremendous Dissatisfaction with Nuclear Waste Project and Proponent https://nuclear-news.net/2025/06/15/2-b1-survey-results-show-tremendous-dissatisfaction-with-nuclear-waste-project-and-proponent/ |
| WAR and CONFLICT Injustice of nuclear-weapons state Israel‘s striking Iranian nuclear sites. Israel’s Netanyahu banks on TACO Trump as he Launches War on Iran to disrupt Negotiations. The whole planet is being kept hostage by a death cult. SPECIAL BULLETIN: Israel Launches Major Strikes on Iran. Israel Launches ‘Operation Rising Lion’ To Strike Iran’s Nuclear Program, Netanyahu Vows To Eliminate Threat. Satellite imagery reveals damage to key Iran nuclear sites. Israeli attack could drive Iran to seek nuclear weapons, IAEA chief warns. ‘TO THE POINT OF UNINHABITABILITY’ . Zelensky’s spectacular Operation Spiderweb has backfired spectacularly. |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Hidden Costs: Nuclear Weapons Spending in 2024. World entering new era as nuclear powers build up arsenals, SIPRI think tank says. European Commission assesses nuclear investment needs of around €241 billion by 2050. Paris wants to manufacture drones in Ukraine. Here is why you should support the Global Network’s Golden Dome statement. Golden Dome Idiocy. Nuclear submarines plan is an expensive mistake – there are better things for UK to spend money on: Andy Brown. |
Why the AUKUS ‘dream’ was never realistic and is likely to die
it has always been clear that Washington will sell us its submarines only if it is absolutely certain Australia would commit them to fight if the US goes to war with China.
The Albanese government has never acknowledged it is willing to make that commitment.
it has always been clear that Washington will sell us its submarines only if it is absolutely certain Australia would commit them to fight if the US goes to war with China.
The Albanese government has never acknowledged it is willing to make that commitment.
Hugh White, Jun 16, 2025, https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2025/06/16/aukus-submarines-review-australia
The first clear sign the Trump administration was taking a long hard look at AUKUS came two weeks ago, when US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth gave his first major speech on US strategic policy in Asia at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
In a long presentation that catalogued a host of initiatives with America’s Asian allies, AUKUS was not mentioned once.
This was noteworthy, because under the Biden administration, AUKUS was the poster-child for US military engagement in the region, name-checked at every opportunity. Now we understand why.
The Pentagon’s review of AUKUS, announced last week, marks the first time any of the three partners – the US, Britain and Australia – has tested the AUKUS dream against hard military and strategic realities. It is unlikely to survive.
AUKUS was always a long shot, right from the start. That was clear from the moment, back in September 2021, that then prime minister, Scott Morrison, sprung the dream of an Australian nuclear-powered submarine force on an astonished public. For that dream to be realised, a lot of things would have to go right, and most of them were much more likely to go wrong.
But the flaw that looks set to kill the AUKUS dream is one that was not part of the original plan. The way Morrison and his then defence minister, Peter Dutton, originally conceived it, there would be no need for Australia to acquire US-built Virginia-Class subs in the 2030s before taking delivery of Australian-built subs to replace the Collins-class boats. They were confident that subs built in Australia, almost certainly to a British design, could be delivered fast enough to enter service as the old Collins subs were being retired, ensuring no gap in our capability.
It became clear this was not going to work out only after Labor took office in 2022, as the new government tried to turn Morrison’s vague idea into a viable project. It soon found there was simply no way to bring new Australian-built nuclear subs into service until long after the Collins boats had to be retired.
To save the AUKUS dream, it was necessary to fill the gap between the retirement of the Collins and the delivery of the first of what we now know as the UK-designed, Australian-built SSN-AUKUS class of submarine. That was when the idea of Australia getting ex-US Navy Virginia class boats first surfaced.
It was a desperate measure that vastly increased the already formidable risks of the whole AUKUS idea. One reason is that it meant the Royal Australian Navy had the almost impossible task of managing and operating not one but two very different kinds of nuclear submarine, powered by two very different nuclear power plants.
For a navy that has struggled to keep the much simpler Collins subs at sea, the task of operating just one class of nuclear-powered subs was truly formidable. To expect it to effectively operate two quite different classes of nuclear submarine simultaneously was frankly absurd.
But there is another reason why the decision to buy Virginia subs to cover the capability gap undermined the viability of the whole AUKUS plan.
Very simply, the US has no submarines to spare. The facilities and workforce that build and maintain its submarines have never recovered from the savage cuts imposed in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. No serious steps were taken to rebuild it even after it became clear China had become a formidable new maritime rival.
The result is that America’s two submarine construction yards have for many years been delivering barely half as many Virginia-class subs as the Pentagon now says America needs – about 1.2 a year instead of two a year.
This problem was acknowledged when the AUKUS partners announced the detailed plan in 2023. It was optimistically claimed that everything necessary would be done to increase production to the level of 2.3 subs a year required to meet US needs and provide extra boats for Australia.
So far, there is no sign of that happening. Elbridge Colby, the senior US official conducting the Pentagon’s AUKUS review, will almost certainly puncture the irresponsible optimism around this crucial issue and make it clear that unless there is a miracle in US submarine production, America will not sell any Virginia-class subs to Australia.
But that’s not all. Even if that miracle is achieved, US leaders and officials still have to ask whether it makes sense for America to pass the extra submarines to Australia rather than bring them into service with the US Navy.
Any subs sold to Australia weaken America at a time when it is already struggling to match China’s fast-growing navy. So it has always been clear that Washington will sell us its submarines only if it is absolutely certain Australia would commit them to fight if the US goes to war with China.
The Albanese government has never acknowledged it is willing to make that commitment. The Biden administration, desperate for its own reasons to keep the AUKUS dream alive, did not press Canberra on this very sensitive point.
The Trump administration will be much tougher. Colby’s review will also certainly conclude that America should not sell Virginia-class subs to Australia, unless Canberra offers much clearer and more public guarantees that Australia will go to war with China if the US ever does.
For Canberra, this could well be a deal-breaker, making the end of the AUKUS dream. It certainly should be.
Hugh White’s new Quarterly Essay, Hard New World: Our Post-American Future, is published this month.
Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University
AUKUS faces bigger tests than Trump’s ‘America first’ review, US and UK experts warn.
The deal could undermine Australia’s sovereignty. it could lock Australia into following the Americans into a confrontation with China over Taiwan.
“You are in the punch-up, whether you like it or not.”
The deal could undermine Australia’s sovereignty. it could lock Australia into following the Americans into a confrontation with China over Taiwan.
“You are in the punch-up, whether you like it or not.”
ABC News, Four Corners, By Mark Willacy, Ninah Kopel and Lara Sonnenschein, 16 June 5
Key defence figures on both sides of the Atlantic warn the risks to AUKUS run deeper than whether a review finds Australia’s biggest ever defence deal is “America first” enough for Donald Trump.
They’ve told Four Corners of the damage being done to decades-old alliances by Mr Trump’s unpredictability and contempt for the US’s allies, the UK’s increasing focus on Europe, and concerns neither country has the capability to deliver the submarines on time or on budget.
With Australia’s allies holding all the cards, and our Indo-Pacific defence strategy at stake, it’s possible we could be left billions out of pocket, without submarines, and with one of our oldest alliances in tatters.
AUKUS alliance ‘undermined’
Even before the US decided to review the deal, a senior member of the country’s powerful Armed Services Committee was warning Mr Trump’s “idiotic” and “bullying” behaviour towards allies presented risks to the alliance with Australia.
The US president has repeatedly said that he regards Canada as the “51st state”, while his belittling of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February shocked American allies around the world.
Mr Trump has also threatened to take back control of the Panama Canal and has not ruled out military force to wrest Greenland from Denmark.
The House Armed Services Committee’s highest-ranking Democrat, congressman Adam Smith, said Canberra had reason to be concerned about whether “the strong partnership between the US and Australia will remain”.
“I cannot possibly be critical enough of the way the Trump administration has treated our partners and allies since they were elected … it’s really stupid,” he said.
“Their contempt for allies and partners has the potential, not just to undermine the AUKUS agreement, but to undermine the very national security of the United States of America.”
Former US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also fears that Mr Trump has undermined America’s standing with its allies and partners.
“I think this is a great source of alarm,” Mr Sullivan, who served in the role under president Joe Biden, told Four Corners. “The direction of travel right now is quite disturbing.”
Mr Sullivan said he understood why allies such as Australia, may be wondering where they stand with the US president.
“I’m not sure that [Mr Trump’s] looking for territory Down Under … not to make light of it,” Mr Sullivan said.
“But I can see why people are asking questions. ‘Hey, what the heck is going on here? This isn’t right.'”
Key voices in the UK, the third alliance partner, are also troubled about the implications for AUKUS.
Former Royal Navy admiral Alan West said, “dear old Trump coming in, that has … stood everyone on their heads really”.
“Things that we absolutely took as a certainty are no longer a certainty,” said Lord West, formerly the official who oversaw the Royal Navy’s operations.
“What he’s been saying about Canada [being the 51st state] is outrageous actually. It’s like stamping on a fluffy bunny really, isn’t it? It’s just terrible.”
America first?
Under the AUKUS agreement the US is supposed to transfer at least three nuclear-powered Virginia-class attack submarines to Australia in the 2030s.
But it’s not building enough Virginia-class submarines for its own fleet, let alone enough to supply Australia.
To meet its targets the US would need to build them at a rate of 2.3 a year. It’s only making 1.2 a year.
Christopher Miller, who served as the acting Defense Secretary in the dying days of the first Trump administration, warns production is “moving too slow”.
“I think probably most of that’s on the United States side, to be perfectly honest with you,” Mr Miller said.
“The problem is we don’t have the workforce, the welders, the skilled machinists that are required.”
Adam Smith conceded slow production had put pressure on the AUKUS deal.
“But I’m hoping that the AUKUS deal will also put pressure the other way. It’ll put pressure to solve that problem,” Mr Smith said.
Earlier this year Australia’s Defence minister handed over $800 million to his US counterpart. It’s the first of six payments designed to help bolster the struggling American submarine industry.
The chief of the Royal Australian Navy, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, told Four Corners Washington was determined to boost production and to fulfil its obligations under the deal.
“That is the United States Navy’s job to set the conditions to enable that to succeed,” Vice Admiral Hammond said.
“They’re being backed up with strategic investment by the United States and by Australia. So I’ve got every reason to believe they will succeed.”
‘They can walk away’
The Trump administration said its review of AUKUS includes ensuring it is “aligned with the president’s ‘America first’ agenda” and that “the defence industrial base is meeting our needs”.
AUKUS critics, like the former commander of the Royal Australian Navy’s submarine squadron, Peter Briggs, warn that Australia could lose everything it has bet on the nuclear subs.
“This is a good deal for the Americans,” Mr Briggs said. “If they see that the AUKUS program is impacting on their capabilities, they can walk away from it.”
“No penalties, no refunds. That’s it.”
Under the United States’ AUKUS legislation, the president has to certify to Congress that any transfer of Virginia-class submarines to Australia would not degrade America’s undersea capabilities. Otherwise, the transfer will not take place…………………………
American leverage
The man leading the review, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, has been staunchly opposed to transferring any Virginia-class submarines to Australia while they are needed by the US.
Last year, before his elevation to the Pentagon, Mr Colby told the ABC it would weaken American strike power.
“It would be crazy for the United States to give away its single most important asset for a conflict with China over Taiwan,” he said at the time.
That view isn’t shared by other Republicans close to Donald Trump.
“We’re not ‘giving them away’. I mean, we are putting them in the hands of our friends in Australia,” Republican congressman Rob Wittman told Four Corners.
He said having Australia equipped with Virginia-class subs would place an obligation on Canberra to use them to assist the US in the Indo-Pacific.
“To me, that’s a lever. That’s where we can leverage the ability for Australia to do even more in partnership,”
Mr Wittman said.
“That’s a force multiplier for the United States and our friends in that region of the world.”
The prospect of “leverage” concerns some, who warn the deal could undermine Australia’s sovereignty.
Mr Briggs fears it could lock Australia into following the Americans into a confrontation with China over Taiwan.
“You are in the punch-up, whether you like it or not,” Mr Briggs said………………………………………
Shifting priorities
Mr Trump’s approach to diplomacy and the US’s lagging production are not the only factors threatening to disrupt AUKUS.
Under the plan the UK will design a brand-new nuclear-powered submarine called the SSN-AUKUS. Construction is due to begin by the end of this decade in the UK and Australia.
But the UK is facing more pressing challenges closer to home.
Since the signing of the agreement in 2021, Europe has seen the outbreak of the largest war on the continent since World War II. Senior UK defence experts say that has up-ended the country’s defence priorities.
…………………….The US isn’t alone in struggling with submarine production.
Former First Sea Lord Alan West said the UK currently does not have the workforce or the specialist skills to deliver the SSN-AUKUS on time……………………. Lord Ricketts said Australia should not expect the SSN-AUKUS to arrive on time or budget.
“I think any sensible defence calculation will be that these things will be more expensive and later than is currently expected,” he said……………………………………….. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-16/aukus-risks-trump-review-defence-four-corners/105412740
Pacific Rim countries say no to U.S.-China war
The question that the people of the Pacific and Pacific Rim countries are asking is: Why do we have to respond to this demand by the U.S.? We are not threatened by China. Where is the dire urgency that demands such a huge distortion of our public spending on the military?
The indications are that the United States is preparing for war against China, but cannot wage such a war from the West Coast of the USA. It needs military bases, port facilities and airfields in the countries on the west side of the Pacific Rim; for example, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, Micronesia and Australia. Without these bases, without the backing of the military forces and munitions and manufacturing capabilities of the Pacific Rim countries, the United States cannot launch and sustain a war against China.
By Bevan Ramsden | 16 June 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/pacific-rim-countries-say-no-to-us-china-war,19837
As the U.S. pushes Pacific Rim allies to ramp up military spending for a possible war with China, a new campaign asks: at what cost and for whose benefit? Bevan Ramsden writes.
THE PACIFIC and Pacific Rim countries have a geographical commonality. They are encircled by, or have a border with, the vast, blue, peaceful Pacific Ocean. They also share a political commonality. The people and countries of this region are under pressure to lift their military spending at the expense of addressing their social needs.
The pressure comes from the United States, whose Defence Secretary, Peter Hegseth, at the recent Singapore Defence Summit, declared that the U.S. expects its allies in this region to increase their defence spending to 5% of their GDP. His justification was a “possibly imminent threat” posed by China. He emphasised how the U.S. is “reorienting towards deterring aggression by China” and made it clear that the Donald Trump Administration’s defence strategy revolves around stifling the rise of China.
Responding to this expectation would involve the doubling of South Korean expenditure on military defence, from 2.6% of its GDP to 5%.
It would mean Japan’s military defence spending would have to triple from 1.8 % of its GDP to 5%.
In Australia, such an increase would represent a two-and-a-half times increase from 2% to 5% of its GDP.
These examples show that the 5% target represents a massive increase in military spending, which can only be made by reducing funding for urgent infrastructure, social needs such as health and education and loss of resources to address the real threat to their living environments, the climate crisis.
The question that the people of the Pacific and Pacific Rim countries are asking is: Why do we have to respond to this demand by the U.S.? We are not threatened by China. Where is the dire urgency that demands such a huge distortion of our public spending on the military?
Another commonality among the countries of the Pacific Rim, particularly those on the western and southern rim of the Pacific, is U.S. troops and U.S. military installations stationed on their territory. In the case of South Korea, these are substantial, close to 30,000 and put that country’s military virtually under the control of the U.S.
Japan has 57,000 U.S. troops, including 20,000 on Okinawa, where the U.S. Kadena Air Base is its largest outside of the USA. Clearly, this level of foreign military occupation exerts substantial pressure on Japan’s foreign policy.
The Philippines has four U.S. bases with troops rotating through its territory and training with its defence forces, and is setting up logistic centres for equipment and munitions.
The people of Guam, a territory under direct U.S. control, are subject to 7,000 U.S. troops, with almost a third of the land controlled by the U.S. military. The Joint Region Marianas is a U.S. military command combining the Andersen Air Force Base and the Naval Base Guam.
Andersen Air Force Base hosts B-52 bombers and fighter jets. Naval Base Guam is the home port for four nuclear-powered fast attack submarines and two submarine tenders. American military commanders have referred to the island as their “permanent aircraft carrier”.
Australian governments, in their subservience to the U.S., have signed the Force Posture Agreement, giving the U.S. military unimpeded access to Australia’s ports and airfields and enabling the establishment of a Northern Territory base for its B-52 bombers, some of which are nuclear-capable. The Agreement is giving the U.S. fuel and munitions storage areas to support war operations and an $8 billion port facility for servicing their nuclear submarines and storage of their nuclear waste.
The people of Pacific Rim countries, including Australia, need to ask: Why does the U.S. have these extensive military facilities in our countries and why are they demanding such huge military expenditures from us?
The answer, unfortunately, is not for the benefit of the people of this region but for its own foreign policy objectives, which include maintaining its dominance in the region by “containing” China and preventing the rise of its influence.
The indications are that the United States is preparing for war against China, but cannot wage such a war from the West Coast of the USA. It needs military bases, port facilities and airfields in the countries on the west side of the Pacific Rim; for example, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Guam, Micronesia and Australia. Without these bases, without the backing of the military forces and munitions and manufacturing capabilities of the Pacific Rim countries, the United States cannot launch and sustain a war against China.
So the United States needs us but we don’t need such a war.
It would only bring devastation to our lives and our economies, and if it turned nuclear, who would survive?
The Pacific Peace Network, with representatives from the Pacific Rim countries and together with World Beyond War, has produced a solidary campaign which is being launched on 21 June 2025.
This is a campaign in which the people of each country on the Pacific Rim, including Australia, can say no to such a war and no to an increase in military spending for it, through a common petition which is a call on their governments.
The common petition can be accessed here at the World Beyond War website.
This call on governments reads:
For sustainable peace and the survival of our peoples and environment, we ask you:
- refuse to join military preparations for a U.S.-China war;
- declare you will not fight in a U.S.-China war;
- declare neutrality should such a war break out; and
- do not allow your territory or waters to be used in such a war, including the collection and relay of military intelligence, sales of weapons and hosting combatant troops and facilities.
Later this year, the petitions will be presented to their respective governments by peace activists in each country.
Where is scrutiny of UK’s nuclear submarine plans?
Samuel Rafanell-Williams, Scottish CND
VERY serious questions have yet to be either asked
or answered about the UK Government’s proposed military spending plans,
following its Strategic Defence Review (SDR) announcement two weeks ago.
In particular, there has yet to be any serious scrutiny of the proposal to
build 12 nuclear-propelled submarines under the Aukus agreement, the
military co-operation agreement between the US, UK and Australia. This
scrutiny is especially necessary given that the Pentagon this week
announced a review of its commitment to the agreement, raising questions
about whether the billions of pounds committed by the UK Government are
destined for the drain.
The Aukus agreement’s main aim is the material
support of the Australian Navy in the Indo-Pacific, primarily by providing
it with eight nuclear-powered submarines of the kind announced in the SDR.
This means several of the 12 nuclear submarines will probably end up
lurking around in the South China Sea, contributing nothing to the defence
of the UK and raising regional tensions.
The UK Government’s irrational and incoherent military spending plans come at a time when the current generation of submarines based at Faslane are in an increasingly atrocious
state of disrepair. Serious radioactive risk incidents at the naval base
are increasing. The Vanguard nuclear-armed submarines are going on
record-long assignments while their substitutes sit rusting in the repair
docks.
Crew are likely enduring awful conditions during six-month stints
underwater, with some reports saying they ran out of food during the last
assignment. Meanwhile, the Dreadnoughts that will supposedly replace these
ailing vessels are unlikely to enter service for 10 years at least – if
the reactors to power them can be built at all. The UK’s nuclear
superpower farce is unsustainable and a disaster waiting to happen. Those
of us who understand this in Scotland must support the parties which oppose
nuclear weapons in the run-up to the 2026 election, and keep up the
pressure on Scottish parliamentarians to support the UN Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The National 14th June 2025,
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25239090.scrutiny-uks-nuclear-submarine-plans/
1 This month
7 April – WEBINAR – Australia and the Doomsday Clock – Preventing nuclear war through NoFirstUse and other policies
Online | Tuesday April 7, 4:00-5:30pm, Australian Eastern Time / 8:00-9:30am Central Europe Time
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15 April – Zoom –Nuclear Power is Not the Solution
Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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