Nuclear zealot Jonathan Mead touts nuclear-powered submarines- Australia to have “full control” – (oh yeah?)

Australian commanders to have complete control over nuclear-powered submarines and reactors

ABC 7.30 / By Sarah Ferguson and James Elton, 13 Feb 23

Australian Navy commanders will have full operational control over their submarines and the powerful nuclear reactors onboard, despite the potential presence of US or UK engineers. 

Key points:

• US or UK personnel may go to sea on Australian nuclear submarines
• Australian technicians will understand “every detail” of how the reactors work
• Construction in Adelaide shipyards may begin by end of 2020s

Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, chief of the AUKUS submarine taskforce, has rejected criticisms that the nuclear propulsion program, based on US technology, would undermine Australian sovereignty. 

“When we take command of our first boat, we will have sovereign capability,” he told 7.30‘s Sarah Ferguson in an exclusive interview. 

Details of extensive plans to build a fleet of eight boats powered with weapons-grade uranium will be revealed next month. 

Vice Admiral Mead was asked what would happen onboard in the event of any dispute over the nuclear reactor, including following an accident, between a US or UK engineer and the boat’s Australian commander.

“We would expect anyone, be it a foreign engineer or an Australian engineer, to provide advice,” he said. 

But the commanding officer of that submarine, the Australian, would have “command and control over the reactor, over the submarine – unequivocal”. 

Australians will understand ‘every detail’ of welded-shut nuclear reactors

The defining feature of the submarine deal is that the highly enriched uranium reactors that power the boats will be supplied by either the US or UK, and “welded shut”.

The use of weapons-grade fuel means the reactors do not need to be opened for refuelling over the 30-plus-year life of the boat. Reactors that run on low-enriched uranium, like those used by the French and Chinese navies, do require refuelling. 

This also means Australia will not need to manufacture nuclear fuel – one of the commitments the country has made to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Vice Admiral Mead said Australia would, however, be sending people to US “design facilities” so we would understand “every element of detail of that reactor”. 

No Australian reactors … for now 

Asked if Australia is considering building its own nuclear reactors in the future, Vice Admiral Mead said: “We are not envisioning that at the moment, we haven’t gone into that at the moment.” 

The senior Navy official has spoken previously about the need for the AUKUS program to have public support. 

Asked what would happen to an Australian nuclear-propelled submarine that was hit by a missile, Vice Admiral Mead said he could not reveal the technical details but that “nuclear-powered submarines are designed for exacting standards”.

He also said that submariners receive only minimal doses of radiation onboard – less than an ordinary person walking the streets of a capital city.

UK or US-designed boat, and when will we see them?

Addressing the scale of the program, Vice Admiral Mead said if Australia wanted to begin construction of new boats in Adelaide “towards the end of this decade” the government would need to quickly finalise the construction of a revamped shipyard. 

He also described the extraordinary staffing requirements of the project, requiring nuclear physicists, chemists and engineers, as well as specialist tradesmen. 

One of the biggest questions around AUKUS is whether Australia would be left without a functioning submarine force before the new boats are launched, as the ageing Collins fleet approaches retirement.

Vice Admiral Mead said unequivocally there would be no gap, but would not be drawn on the Navy’s specific plans.

The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, recently suggested a new submarine design the three countries could share was under consideration. 

Asked whether that strategy would further delay the delivery of new submarines, Vice Admiral Mead reaffirmed there would be no gap in Australia’s capability. 

China is the motivation

Vice Admiral Mead said rapid changes in the Indo Pacific had sharpened strategic competition.

“We’ve also seen in recent years a significant modernisation in the Chinese military, particularly the Navy,” he said.

Australia’s current fleet of Collins class submarines run on diesel-electric engines that are extremely quiet when running off the battery. 

Nuclear submarines have massive range and the stealth advantage of not needing to resurface, but they do have reactor components that can’t be easily switched off to “go quiet”. 

The pros and cons of nuclear and conventional submarines have led defence analysts to suggest a new generation of diesel submarines should be considered as well, particularly to operate closer to the Australian coastline – while the nuclear boats could be prioritised for operations further away from the mainland.

But Vice Admiral Mead said the nuclear submarines would be a good option in both theatres.

“Nuclear-powered submarines provide a capability to deploy away from the home shore, or to deploy close to home shore,” he said. 

Pressed on whether conventional submarines would be quieter for closer operations, Vice Admiral Mead said under some circumstances nuclear submarines could be “just as quiet”. 

“It’s often more to do with the age and the technology of the submarine that we are dealing with,” he said.

Vice Admiral Mead said the purpose of nuclear-powered submarines was to “put the greatest question of doubt in the enemy’s mind” and “if necessary, respond with massive firepower”. 

This type of game-changing capability, he said, would change Australia’s “strategic personality”.  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-13/australian-commanders-complete-control-over-nuclear-submarines/101965182

February 13, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The US is preparing Australia to fight its war against China

The United States is not preparing to go to war against China. The United States is preparing Australia to go to war against China.

Defence and military weapons manufacturing industries in Australia are now largely owned by US weapons corporations – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Thales, NorthropGrumman. The deep integration of Australia’s defence industries and economy into the US military-industrial complex greatly influences Australia’s foreign/defence policies.

The Threat. All these preparations are justified by the false premise that China presents a military threat. China has not invaded anywhere. It has never proposed use of force against other countries. It has enshrined in its Constitution the ‘Three No’s – No military alliances; No military bases; No use, or threat to use, military force. China has, however, reserved the right to use force to prevent secession by Taiwan.

Guardian, By John Lander, Feb 1, 2023 Edited transcript of a speech to the Committee for the Republic, Salon, 18 January 2023.

The ANZUS Treaty

A look at the ANZUS Treaty and the way it has been manipulated over time will explain why I have come to this conclusion.

Originally defensive in concept, the ANZUS Treaty was seen by Australia from its very beginning as a means to “achieve the acceptance by the USA of responsibility in SE Asia” (Percy Spender) to shield Australia from perceived antagonistic forces in its region. It has, however, developed into an instrument for the furtherance of US ability to prosecute war globally – previously in Iraq and Afghanistan, currently against Russia and potentially against China.

The ANZUS Treaty, usually referred to in reverential tones as “The Alliance”, has been elevated to an almost religious article of faith, against which any demur is treated as heresy amounting to treachery. Out of anxiety to cement the US into protection of Australia, the Alliance has been invoked as justification for Australia’s participation in almost every American military adventure – or misadventure – since WW II.

Unlike NATO or the Defence Treaty with Japan, the ANZUS treaty actually provides no guarantee of protection, merely assurances to consult on appropriated means of support in the event that Australia should come under attack.

On the other hand, the Alliance has facilitated the steady growth of American presence in Australia, to the point that it pervades every aspect of Australian political, economic, financial, social and cultural life. Australians fret about China “buying up the country”, but American investment is ten times the size.

They are unaware or uncaring that almost every major Australian company across the resources, food, retail, mass media, entertainment, banking and finance sectors has majority American ownership. Right now US corporations eclipse everyone else in their ability to influence our politics through their investment in Australian stocks.

The transfer of Australian assets to American ownership has continued unabated: In the second half of 2021 then Treasurer Josh Frydenberg approved the transfer of $130 billion of Australian assets to foreign private equity funds, benefiting Goldman Sachs who facilitated the transactions, by multimillions of dollars. Josh Frydenberg now is employed by Goldman Sachs:

• Sydney Airport – Macquarie Bank led by a NY investment banker
• AusNet (electricity infrastructure) $18 billion takeover by Brookfield – NY via Canada
• SparkInfrastructure (electricity) $5.2 billion takeover by American interests
• AfterPay financial transaction system $39 billion takeover
• Healthscope, second-biggest private hospitals group (72 Hospitals) taken over by Brookfield and now controlled in the Cayman Islands.

The USA and the UK between them represent nearly half of all foreign investment. China plus Hong Kong represents 4.2%. The 4 big “Aussie” banks are dependent on foreign capital which dictate local banks’ policies and operations.

Defence and military weapons manufacturing industries in Australia are now largely owned by US weapons corporations – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Thales, NorthropGrumman. The deep integration of Australia’s defence industries and economy into the US military-industrial complex greatly influences Australia’s foreign/defence policies.

That, plus US capture of Australia’s intelligence and policy apparatus through the “Five Eyes” network and ASPI (which has lobbyists from American arms manufacturers on a Board headed by an operative trained by the CIA) means that the US is able to swing Australian policy to support America in almost all its endeavours.

Despite the fact that it contains no guarantee of US protection of Australia, the Treaty and further arrangements under its auspices, such as the 2014 Force Posture Agreement and now AUKUS, have greatly facilitated US war preparation in Australia. This has accelerated exponentially in the past few years. The US now describes Australia as the most important base for the projection of US power in the Indo-Pacific.

Indicators of war preparations

* 2,500 US marines stationed in Darwin practicing for war with the Australian Defence Forces, soon to include the Japanese Defence Forces

* Establishment of a regional HQ for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Darwin

* Lengthening the RAAF aircraft runways in Northern Territory at our expense for servicing US fighters and bombers

* Proposed stationing of 6 nuclear weapons-capable B52 Bombers at RAAF Tindal in NT

* Construction of massive fuel and maintenance facilities in Darwin NT for US aircraft

* Proposed acquisition of eight nuclear-propelled submarines at the cost of $170 billion for hunter-killer operations in the Taiwan Strait

* Construction, at the cost of $10 billion, of a deep water port on Australia’s east coast for US and UK nuclear powered and nuclear missile-carrying submarines

* The long-established satellite communications station known as Pine Gap in central Australia has recently, and is still being, expanded and upgraded. It is key to the command and control of US forces in the Indo-Pacific (and even as far afield as Ukraine)

The Government and right wing anti-China analysts and commentators, whose opinions dominate main stream media, accept the Defence Minister’s contention that this militarisation enhances Australia’s sovereignty by strengthening the range and lethality of Australia’s high-end war-fighting capability to provide a credible deterrent to a potential aggressor.

Many analysts and commentators outside the governing elite, including myself, argue that these arrangements effectively cede Australian sovereignty to America. This is especially because of the provisions of the Force Posture Agreement of 2014, entered into under the auspices of ANZUS.

I understand that a paper has been circulated to the Committee, expounding the details of the FPA, so in summary, it gives unimpeded access, exclusive control and use of agreed facilities and areas to US personnel, aircraft, ships and vehicles and gives Australia absolutely no say at all in how, when where and why they are to be used.

All Australian analysts, whether sympathetic or antipathetic to China, agree on one point. That is, that if the US goes to war against China over the status of Taiwan, or any other issue of contention, Australia will inevitably be involved.

The Threat

All these preparations are justified by the false premise that China presents a military threat. China has not invaded anywhere. It has never proposed use of force against other countries. It has enshrined in its Constitution the ‘Three No’s – No military alliances; No military bases; No use, or threat to use, military force. China has, however, reserved the right to use force to prevent secession by Taiwan.

It has recently rapidly increased its defence capability in response to the fearsome US naval presence and war-fighting exercises just off its coastline. Its defence budget is one third that of the US and the bases that it has constructed in the South China Sea pale into insignificance compared to the hundreds of bases that the US has ranged all around China.

So, if China is not a military threat, why is it designated as the primary systemic threat of the collective West, led by the US? The answer lies in the word “systemic”. China has expressed a determination to revamp the global financial system to make it fairer for developing countries. Kissinger is reputed to have said: “If you control money, you control the world”. The US currently controls world finance and China (with Russia) is out to change that.

The US, which played the leading part in the establishment of the post-World War II institutions, has become a leading revisionist, abandoning the UN for “coalitions of the willing”. The US has declined to join important Conventions like those on the Law of the Sea and on Climate. It has refused to accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and has exempted itself from the Genocide Convention. It has played a leading part in the weakening of the World Trade Organisation by imposing trade restrictions on other countries, while not agreeing to new appointments to the WTO’s appellate tribunal, so preventing that body from functioning.

China is the second-largest (or by some calculations, the largest) economy in the world. It is the major trading partner of over 100 countries, mainly in the global south, but including Australia and a number of other Western countries. Hence China has the clout to undermine the “international rules-based order” set up by, and for the benefit of, the West.

China has already established an alternative to the Anglo-American international financial transaction system: – the Cross-border Interbank Payments System CIPS, (in which, ironically a number of Western banks are shareholders). In collaboration with Russia and within the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa) China is creating an alternative to the almighty dollar as the preferred currency for trade and for national reserve holdings.

It seems that the US has concluded that, since it can’t constrain China economically, it will have to get it bogged down in a long-drawn-out war to hinder its economic growth and hamper its infrastructure development cooperation with other countries. On 25 March 2021 President Biden vowed to prevent China from overtaking the US as the most powerful country in the world – “not on my watch” he said.

Nevertheless, the latest CSIS computer modelling, like previous modelling by the Rand Corporation, indicates that all involved in a Sino-US war would lose.

Proxy War

All of these analyses overlook one significant point. US determination to pursue the Wolfowitz doctrine of preventing the rise of any power that could challenge US global supremacy (neither Russia, nor Europe, nor China) has not diminished, but has morphed into a strategy of fighting its adversaries by proxy.

This has been clearly demonstrated by the war in Ukraine. A White House press briefing on 25 January 2022, before the Russian intervention, stated that “the US, in concert with its European partners, will weaken Russia to the point where it can exercise no influence on the international stage”.

Political leaders from Biden, through Pelosi and on to Members of Congress have told Ukraine that “your war is our war and we are in it for as long as it takes”. Congressman Adam Schiff put it bluntly that “we support Ukraine… to fight Russia over there, so that we don’t have to fight it over here”.

In the case of China, defined in the NDS as the principal threat to the US, the proxy of choice is clearly Taiwan. The strategy envisages:

• a world-wide media campaign (going on for several years already) to portray China as the aggressor;

• goading China into taking military action to prevent Taiwan’s secession;

• leaving Taiwan to conduct its own defence, with constant resupply of arms and equipment from the US, at great profit to the military/industrial complex;

• sustaining Taiwan sufficiently to keep China ‘bogged down’, thus hampering its economic development and its infrastructure cooperation with other countries;

• avoiding direct military engagement, in order to maintain the full capacity of US forces, while China’s would be significantly depleted; Although Biden has publicly re-affirmed adherence to the ‘One China’ principle, the US has been goading China by;

• stationing the bulk its naval power off the coast of China;

• ‘freedom of navigation’ and combat exercises in the South China Sea and Taiwan Straits;

• visits by senior US officials using US military aircraft;

• creation of a putative ‘Air Defence Identification Zone’ (ADIZ) extending well over mainland territory and then alleging Chinese violation of it;

• secretly providing military training personnel (whilst denying it);

• including Taiwan in the Summit for Democracy (9-10 December 2021), implying it is a separate country;

Many Australian politicians, (although not the present government), joined in goading China, by encouraging Taiwan to consider the possibility of declaring independence, which would trigger military action by China.

If Australia were to make good on its promise to ‘save Taiwan’, it would be devastated:

• The Australian navy would be obliterated, given the disparity between China’s and Australia’s forces;

* command/control centres (and possibly cities) in Australia could be wiped out by Chinese missiles. Australia has no anti-missile defence;

• To preserve its own assets, and to forestall the descent into nuclear conflict, the US would not engage directly in defence of Australia;

• US ‘support’ would be through massive arms sales to replace our losses – just as in Ukraine – at further profit to the US military/industrial complex;

• ASEAN is unlikely to support Australia. It has renewed and up-graded its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China. Each member country has infrastructure projects under China’s BRI, which they would not want to jeopardise in a ‘no-win war’;

Support from India is unlikely, despite its membership of the Quad – which is nothing more than a consultative dialogue. India has security commitments to China under the SCO and gets its arms from Russia, which has a “better than treaty” relationship with China.

• Australia relies heavily on China for many daily necessities. In a war, deliveries from China would be severely disrupted.

The increasing size of China’s economic (and, by extension military) strength, to which Australia contributes important resources and from which it derives so much benefit, is portrayed as a threat to Australia’s security. This has Australia trapped in the absurd policy paradox of preparing to go to war against China to protect Australia’s trade with China.

Recent developments in Taiwan, particularly the county and municipal elections, which caused the President, Tsai Ingwen, to resign her leadership of the pro-Independence Party, suggest that Taiwan prefers the status quo and is unwilling to be the proxy of the US in a war with Beijing.

Australia thus becomes the potential proxy.

In the name of the Alliance, American service personnel (active and retired) are now embedded in Australian defence policy making institutions and in command and control positions within the ADF. All of the American military assets installed in Australia under the Alliance and the AUKUS deal, are now “interchangeable” with the ADF, making it possible to use them as putative Australian forces against China, while the US stands aside and maintains the same pretence of “no engagement”, as it is doing in Ukraine.

This is why I said at the beginning that the US is preparing to send Australia to war against China.

Whilst these are the dangers that the ANZUS Alliance poses for Australia if the US instigates a war against China, there are risks for the US also.

1. There would be crippling expense that further exacerbates the US wealth divide and related domestic political breakdown. Supplying the weaponry and everything else required for a proxy war with China would be a bigger drain on the US budget than the Ukraine conflict. The expenditure would flow back to the military industrial complex, constituting a further massive transfer of wealth from the ordinary taxpayer to the plutocrat billionaires. It would blow out the already unsustainable national debt, and either take away from expenditure on essential services and infrastructure, or, if they print money, further blow out inflation. The political and social breakdown that the US is already suffering as a consequence of its real economic decline and widening wealth gap could only intensify to breaking point.

2. The slide into a direct war would probably be inevitable. Planning a proxy war is all very well as an academic exercise, but sticking with those plans when the fighting starts will be very difficult. There are already lunatic politicians and “experts” in the US who think America can win a direct war, so when China starts bombing Australia, and good old Aussie “mates” are dying in massive numbers, the voices of those in the US advocating direct engagement will be amplified. Combined with the already extreme polarisation of US politics in which ONLY war is bipartisan, the risk that extremists will take the US into direct conflict, and a nuclear showdown with China, is very serious.

3. The folding in of Japan into the AUKUS arrangements will increase the risk that Japan would be obliged to assist Australia in any military conflict with China. The US, because of its Defence Treaty with Japan, would then be obliged to join in the fighting, vitiating its plan to avoid direct military engagement.

A point of historical irony:

I’ll wind up with a bit of historical irony, in which I was personally involved:

In the early 70’s, we had been kept completely in the dark about the secret Kissinger visits to China, until the plan for Nixon to visit was announced. Feeling blindsided by a momentous change in US policy towards China, we produced Policy Planning Paper QP11/71 of 21 July 1971.

It recognised.. “political disadvantage resulting from the manner in which the United States conducts its global policies” and argued that this would mean that. “The American alliance, in a changing power balance, will mean less to us than it has in the past.”

It went on:

“If anything, this argument has been strengthened by recent United States actions and America’s failure to consult us on issues of primary importance to Australia. Accordingly, we shall need, now more than ever, to formulate independent policies, based on Australian national interests and those of our near neighbours…”

This is even more true today than it was in the 1970’s. For example, Australia was not consulted in the precipitate US withdrawal from Afghanistan, despite our role as ‘loyal’ supporter of the US in that ill-advised conflict. Our indignant protestations were met with Biden’s statement that “America acts only in its own interests”.

Our present predicament is due largely to the failure of a succession of Australian Governments to take this analysis to heart and act upon it. Prime Minister Fraser, who replaced Whitlam, ironically came to a very similar view towards the end of his life, which he set forth in detail in his book ‘Dangerous Allies’, but too late to do anything about it. He identified the paradox that Australia needs the US for its defence, but it only needs defending because of the US.

A couple of pertinent quotes, first from the late Jim Molan:

“Our forces were not designed to have any significant independent strategic impact. They were purely designed to provide niche components of larger American missions.”

We were, in his view, abdicating our own defence and cultivating complete dependence on the Americans.

And from Chris Hedges:

“Finally, the neo-cons who have led the U.S. into the serial debacles of Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Ukraine, costing the country tens of trillions of dollars and even greater amounts of destroyed reputational capital, will claim their customary immunity from any accountability for their savage failures and cheerily move on to their next calamity. We need to be on the lookout for their next gambit to pillage the treasury and advance their own private interests above those of the nation. It will surely come.”

An (incomplete) list of some of the commentators from whom I have drawn:

John Menadue – former secretary PM&C

Richard Tanter – military analyst, Nautilus Foundation

Brian Toohey – author (political and historical analysis)

Mike Scrafton was a senior Defence executive, and ministerial adviser to the minister for defence

Paul Keating was the prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996.

Geoff Raby AO was Australia’s ambassador to China (2007–11); He was awarded the Order of Australia for services to Australia–China relations and to international trade.

Gregory Clark began his diplomatic career with postings to Hong Kong and Moscow. He is emeritus president of Tama University in Tokyo and vice-president of the pioneering Akita International University.

Dr Mike Gilligan worked for 20 years in defence policy and evaluating military proposals for development, including time in the Pentagon on military balances in Asia.

Jocelyn Chey AM is Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney and Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University and UTS. She formerly held diplomatic posts in China and Hong Kong. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

Joseph Camilleri is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, and President of Conversation at the Crossroads

David S G Goodman is the Director, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney.

Geoff Miller was Director-General, Office of National Assessments, deputy secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador to Japan and the Republic of Korea, and High Commissioner to New Zealand.

Cavan Hogue was Ambassador to USSR and Russia. He also worked at ANU and Macquarie universities.

February 9, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Aukus: Biden urged to fast-track research into submarines using non-weapons grade uranium

US lawmakers are concerned that if Australia’s new nuclear submarines use enriched fuel it could undermine global non-proliferation system

Guardian Daniel Hurst 4 Feb 23

The Biden administration is being urged to fast-track research into submarines that do not use weapons-grade uranium, as four Democratic politicians warn the Aukus deal with Australia makes the task “even more pressing”.

Australia’s deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, arrived in the United States for crucial talks with the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Friday (US time), amid renewed congressional concerns about aspects of the flagship Aukus project.

With March looming as the deadline for key decisions on how Australia acquires at least eight nuclear-powered submarines with help from the US and the UK, all three countries maintain the work remains on track.

But in the latest sign of congressional jitters, four politicians from Joe Biden’s party have sounded the alarm about broader risks to the global nuclear non-proliferation system.

A newly published letter coordinated by Bill Foster, a physicist serving as US representative for an Illinois congressional district, asks the Biden administration to ramp up research into alternatives to using weapons-grade uranium to power submarines.

It adds to concerns already raised by experts that if the Australian submarines are powered by highly enriched uranium (HEU), other countries may seek to follow the precedent – even though they will not be armed with nuclear weapons…………………….

in a letter to the administrator of the NNSA and the navy secretary, the politicians formally requested a detailed report on “the feasibility and performance impact of a Virginia-Class replacement SSN(X) nuclear-powered attack submarine” that is fuelled by a low-enriched uranium (LEU) reactor with a life-of-the-ship core.

They said previous reports indicated it “may be feasible for the navy to use LEU fuel for naval nuclear propulsion, as France and China already do”……………….

“Minimizing the global presence of HEU by reducing its use in military applications would reduce the risks associated with making and transporting HEU and demonstrate significant leadership on nonproliferation,” the letter said…………….

James Acton, a co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has previously argued that Aukus depends on “a glaring and worrying loophole in IAEA safeguards” that could be exploited by others.

This loophole allows non-nuclear weapon countries to remove the fissile material they need for the submarine reactors from the stockpile monitored by the IAEA………………………………………………..

In the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, which was signed by Biden in late December, the US Congress requested Austin to order an independent assessment of the “challenges” to implementing Aukus………..  https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/03/aukus-biden-urged-to-fast-track-research-into-submarines-using-non-weapons-grade-uranium

February 4, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Push in US Congress to exempt Australia from International Traffic in Arms Regulations, so that it can import nuclear submarines.

Democrat push to grant Australia a waiver to import nuclear subs earlier than expected

SMH, ByFarrah Tomazin, January 21, 2023 —

Washington: A maze of US regulations and export control laws stand between Australia and the multibillion-dollar AUKUS submarine agreement, prompting a key ally of the pact in Congress to propose a blanket exemption to accelerate delivery of the nuclear-powered fleet.

Democratic congressman Joe Courtney, who recently spearheaded a bipartisan defence of the Australia-UK-US pact amid jitters from some of his Washington colleagues, wants Australia to be given a waiver from strict US export controls that could otherwise derail the agreement.

The International Traffic in Arms Regulations is one set of rules which could delay for years the transfer of crucial technologies at a time when Australia is racing to bolster its submarine capacity before the retirement of its Collins-class fleet.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has said the government will announce by March which type of submarine it will acquire, after receiving a recommendation from Jonathan Mead, the head of the Nuclear Powered Submarine Taskforce.

The announcement is expected to provide the first concrete insights into the cost, timing and procurement of the AUKUS deal. The modelling so far has suggested that if the submarines are produced in Australia, as the government has suggested, the earliest possible delivery date would be 2055.

While President Joe Biden supports AUKUS, he needs the backing of a divided Congress to make good on his promise to share American submarine secrets with Australia.

Courtney, who co-chairs the bipartisan “AUKUS caucus” and is regarded as one of Congress’ top navy experts, said a potential solution to the difficulties posed by US law would be to pass an exemption, with the support of the Pentagon, allowing Australia to bypass rules such as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and related nuclear submarine laws, for the strict purpose of advancing AUKUS……………………………….

Australian officials have for years been pushing their US counterparts to reform their treatment under arms regulations, and the issue was front and centre of the December Australian-US Ministerial consultations between Marles and US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin…………

In response to questions from this masthead, a spokesman for the Australian Department of Defence said it was anticipating that export arrangements would need to change “to ensure technology and expertise could be transferred seamlessly and effectively among AUKUS partners, as well as their respective industrial bases, within a suitably designed protective framework”…………

At a seminar last week, Democratic congressman Adam Smith, a ranking member of the House of Representatives armed services committee, also warned that while AUKUS was “a great idea, with a lot of promise” it “could also go bloop” unless some regulatory restrictions were eased.

And Mark Watson, the director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Washington office, suggested that “an AUKUS express lane is what we need” to avoid delaying or derailing the project due to the maze of red tape and complex US laws surrounding it.

But the regulatory hurdles are not the only difficulty the alliance faces.

One of the concessions Republican congressman Kevin McCarthy made this month to secure the speakership of the House of Representatives was a vote on a framework that caps discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels. Some fear that this could result in the US defence budget being cut in real terms, which Courtney warned “could have a very negative effect on AUKUS”.

Helping Australia acquire nuclear submarines will also test America’s submarine manufacturing industry, which has already been strained by the COVID pandemic.  https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/democrat-push-to-grant-australia-a-waiver-to-import-nuclear-subs-earlier-than-expected-20230120-p5ce4e.html

January 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Australia’s nuclear submarine plan – a source of disagreement in US Congress

Who is going to build our nuclear submarines? Financial Review 13 Jan23.……………………………………………………………. At the heart of the problem is this simple fact: according to current projections, the US needs to turn out two submarines a year, but only around 1.3 per year are coming out of its naval shipyards.

The deficit in shipyard capacity is a problem that affects maintenance and refits as well as new boat construction. Last year, Rear Admiral Doug Perry, director of undersea warfare requirements in the US Navy, admitted that of America’s 50 attack submarines, “18 were either in maintenance or waiting to go in maintenance”. That figure should be closer to 10.

‘Zero-sum game’

In the words of senators Reed and Inhofe, “what was initially touted as a ‘do no harm’ opportunity to support Australia and the United Kingdom and build long-term competitive advantages for the US and its Pacific allies, may be turning into a zero-sum game for scarce, highly advanced US SSNs”.

Reed and Inhofe will have been briefed in detail by US officials, and presumably those classified briefings led them to conclude that the projected additional demand from the AUKUS program would come at the expense of America’s own military preparedness.

…………………………….. the back-and-forth [in the USA regarding Austrsalian submarines] shows that wider congressional commitment could be put under strain if the program comes to be seen as improving Australian capability while stretching the US to breaking point.

January 14, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Dear US Congress, thank you for saving Australia from itself

by Rex Patrick | Jan 7, 2023  https://michaelwest.com.au/dear-us-congress-thank-you-for-saving-australia-from-itself/

Is “bad news” out of US Congress about an AUKUS nuclear submarine deal a blessing in disguise? Former submariner and senator Rex Patrick says US politicians, though acting in the interests of the US, may save Australia from itself, and $170 billion too. 

We are concerned that what was initially touted as a ‘do no harm’ opportunity to support Australia and the United Kingdom and build long-term competitive advantages for the US and its Pacific allies, may be turning into a zero-sum game for scarce, highly advanced U. SSNs,” wrote the Democrat and Republican heads of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Over the past year, we have grown more concerned about the state of the US submarine industrial base as well as its ability to support the desired AUKUS SSN [Nuclear Submarine] end state”.

“We believe current conditions require a sober assessment of the facts to avoid stressing the US submarine industrial base to the breaking point.”

These two Senators have nailed it. 

Scotty’s greatest marketing moment

The AUKUS submarine was a ‘brain fart’ of Prime Minister Scott Morrison who was facing disquiet within the Liberal Party ranks (I know; as a Senator and submariner, they were raising the issue with me) over the French designed Attack Class replacement submarine program.

It was an idea supported by a Defence Department which had, in the 12 years since the future submarine project had been initiated, spent five billion taxpayer dollars delivering no submarine, and more than $8.5 billon on other failed projects.

On the morning of September 16, 2021, Morrison stood up in a stage-managed announcement staring US President Biden, then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Morrison. Apart from the fact that President Biden didn’t know Morrison’s name, it was Morrison’s greatest ‘Scotty from Marketing’ moment.

While waving a big and distracting nuclear submarine hand to the camera, his other hand was behind his back silently putting a death to the French submarine program, something that would very shortly after cause a diplomatic rift between Australia and France.

Then opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, was given a briefing on AUKUS and the new submarine plans just 24 hours prior to the announcement. In the face of the oncoming election, Albanese made the political call to give the announcement Labor’s full support. Indeed, pursuing a ‘small target’ political strategy, Labor was embarrassingly desperate to avoid a fight about national security.

Not good for Australia

It was only after the dust had settled that the right questions started to be asked; simple questions like how much, when and where?

The cost soon emerged. The French submarine program has taken an expensive $50 billion submarine program and blown out to an unaffordable $90 billion. The AUKUS submarine was to invoke a cost ‘chain reaction’, coming in at a bankrupting $170 billion. We were jumping out of the financial frying pan and into the fire.

2040 what?

The commissioning date soon emerged. 2040! Noting the rationale for the switch from a French to an AUKUS program was the rising geo-political tension in our regions, the AUKUS submarine was to be delivered even later that the French solution. In an environment where Defence itself had warned our defence procurement warning time had been reduced to less than 10 year, it made no sense to embark on a program that delivers a first capability in 20 years.

Then the build discussions started. The nuclear submarine was not to be built in Australia, rather the US. We were going to sell out Australia industry, and in particular our hard-won competent submarine sustainment industry. We were going simply export $170B, most of the jobs and a sovereign capability the taxpayer had spent billions developing.

Not good for the US either

And the US Congress is now coming to the realisation that the AUKUS program will not be good for the US either. 

Supporting Australia’s submarine program will put even more pressure on the US submarine industry trying to build 12 new Columbia Class ballistic missile submarines and meet the demands of supplying the US Navy with its own Virginia Class submarines. 

This is not surprising. The US Congressional Research Service has been issuing reports for the better part of a decade that highlight the growing pressures on and limited capacity of the two American submarine construction facilities. The industrial capacity problem is already acute. 

The old Los Angeles Class submarines are retiring faster that the Virginias can be brought online.

Now the Senate Armed Services Committee has finally realised what would be involved in supporting the AUKUS submarine.

Please help pal!

Not having built or operated nuclear submarines before, and as the only country in the world that would be operating nuclear submarines without an established nuclear power industry, Australia’s dependency on the US would be significant. Training, shipbuilding, operating and maintaining a nuclear submarine, nuclear safety … we would need a lot of help with all of it.

We are talking about nuclear reactors. The US can’t half commit to this. AUKUS nuclear submarines will be a considerable distraction to the entire US submarine enterprise at a time when they don’t need distraction.

But the public concerns of the senators only tell half the story.

China conflict looms, before the subs arrive

Conflict between the US and China is more likely to occur in the next decade, than in the 2040’s when a first AUKUS nuclear submarine would be fully operational.

A decision by the US to support an AUKUS nuclear submarine would be a decision resigning their close Asia-Pacific ally to the operating of ageing Collins class submarines in the very period a high-end submarine partnering capability was needed most.

Stupid and stupider, but political momentum

The whole AUKUS nuclear submarine thing has a political momentum about it which will bring about national security downsides for both countries. 

As indicated above, the Labor Party leadership signed up to this massive project on 24 hours’ notice and little information. Now, completely captured by the ‘Department of Largely Failed Procurement and No Accountability’, Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy have been supplied with a full barrel of naval Kool Aide, and they’re chugging it down.

Cold hard analysis, such as that being conducted by the US Congress, might be the only thing that saves Australia from itself.

January 9, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment