Australian Futures: Bringing AUKUS Out of Stealth Mode
By Denis Bright
With both sides of the mainstream Australian political divide supporting the AUKUS deal, debate about the merits of this commitment by Scott Morrison has largely gone into recess.
As the third anniversary of Scott Morrison’s announcement of the AUKUS deal on 16 September 2021 approaches, there is growing confidence in the defence establishment that Australians have accepted the need for nuclear-powered submarines. The Defence Special Supplement in The Australian (28 May 2024) is a sign of this confidence. Multinational defence companies have lined up to fund advertisements which demonstrated their patriotic commitment to AUKUS with the support of the South Australia Government.
Each of the defence companies listed maintains a profitable involvement in both military and civilian projects. The KBR engineering company of Houston emphasizes a benign involvement in Australian civilian engineering projects like the Snowy Mountains upgrade and the Adelaide to Darwin Railway. This company is more deeply involved in the military sector globally.
Readers with access to the Defence Supplement can undertake their own research to uncover the ownership and activities of each of the British and US companies listed in the supplement. Here is a sample of the defence outreach from KPR Engineering:
KBR’s Defense Systems Engineering Business Unit goes beyond providing full spectrum engineering and technical solutions across the lifecycle of DoD military systems on land, at sea, in the air, and in space. KBR differentiates itself in the industry by integrating emerging technologies with platform experience to deliver increased value to US DoD and our allies.
Advertising in combination with sensational eyewitness news reporting works in eroding resistance to AUKUS. The Lowy Institute has monitored quite favourable public support for AUKUS arrangements:
Expect concerns about AUKUS to resurface in the future as the cost burdens increase and the encirclement of China by the US Global Alliance takes its toll on longer-term trade and investment relationships between Australia and China. Strategic mishaps are always possible as surface vessels and submarines compete for space in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea. Sabre rattling over uninhabited rock outcrops and remote islands has continued for a couple of decades over rival claims about freedom of navigation. Fortunately. There have been no major mishaps.
Ironically, the US has not ratified the UN’s Freedom of Navigation conventions from the 1980s. Its strategic policies seek alternatives to Chinese trade and investment links with countries across the US Global Alliance as an afford to the peace outreach of China:
Percentage Changes in Chinese Foreign Direct Investment
The costs of the AUKUS extend well beyond the financial and strategic costs of future naval hardware. Australia’s support for the naval encirclement of our best trading partnership will have an unknown impact on our own regional economic diplomacy. Australia’s Future Fund Chief Executive Dr Raphael Arndt dared to warn that global strategic tensions had intruded into financial decision-making and risk assessments (AFR Weekend 15 June 2024). The longer-term impact on Australian trade and investment with China is still a matter for speculation.
Financial Costs of AUKUS
According to Al Jazeera News (11 June 2022), the Albanese government completed a final payment to France of approximately $850 million for breach of contract over the abandonment of the purchase of twelve Attack-class submarines from Naval Group. Despite cost increases and construction delays, delivery of the diesel-electric submarines should have commenced in the late 2020s at a cost that was a fraction of the AUKUS estimates.
The costs of the AUKUS deal are less transparent. Construction costs alone extending over 30 years were initially set at up to $368 billion (AFR 17 March 2023). The extended delivery dates are a cause for concern. US and British supplied nuclear-powered (SSN) submarines might be deployed here in the late 2020s. At least three Virginia class submarines will be built for Australia with a new class of British submarines arriving in the late 2030s before Australian built SSNs come online in the 2040s.
Strategic Risks
Hopefully, the strategic risks of maintaining a new SSN fleet were considered prior to the AUKUS announcement by Scott Morrison on 16 September 2021. How could this have been achieved competently with a critical review from only three cabinet ministers?
Media concerns should have been raised after Scott Morrison claimed in the 7.30 Report interview with Sarah Ferguson that discussions on the AUKUS alternatives were made with just two other ministers at a time when he held multiple ministerial portfolios with the approval of the Australian Governor General between March 2020 and the election in 2022 (14 March 2023).
Before attending the G-7 Summit in Cornwall as a specially invited guest of the Summit Chair Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison had been sworn into the portfolios of Health, Finance, Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, Home Affairs and Treasury. The 47th G-7 Summit convened a month after Scott Morrison’s last two ministerial appointments. Perhaps Boris Johnson could be quizzed on this issue. Both Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison met in person at the G7 Summit in Cornwall (11-13 June 2021). It is logical for them to have discussed the emergent AUKUS deal which was hardly the brainchild of Scott Morrison as claimed by Sky News (27 February 2024).
New SSN submarines place at risk our currently favourable economic diplomacy with China. There are hazards for extended operations in stealth mode in disputed waters. Readers can always investigate the risks of accidental collisions, mechanical malfunction, radioactive hazards and psychological stress on crew members.
Even in friendly waters off Hawaii, the USS Greeneville (SSN-772) surfaced too close to a Japanese fishery high school training ship Ehime Maru. It sank with the loss of nine people on 9 February 2001.
A show of force to diffuse a territorial dispute is an archaic concept. Such gimmicks belong to the pre-1914 era. Both Britain and the US have a long history of involving middle powers in bolstering their strategic outreach.
When the Great War (1914-18) was in stalemate on the Western Front, the Nationalist Government of Billy Hughes in Australia tried two unsuccessful referendum proposals to introduce conscription for overseas military service. British Prime Minister Lloyd George and the Secretary of the State for War and Air Winston Churchill welcomed these initiatives.
Britain had more success by imposing the secret Treaty of London on Italy in 1915 with promises of territorial gains and financial loans if Italy joined the war effort against Austria-Hungary. Similar inducements were offered to Woodrow Wilson’s administration in the USA.
There were few dividends for Italy from the Treaty of London. Prior to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Britain and France had worked out secret arrangements to divide up the Turkish Empire. France gained a mandate over Syria and Lebanon while Britain opted for control of oil rich Iraq, Palestine. Britain had occupied the Suez Canal to sever it from the rest of the Turkish Empire in December 1914.
The consequences of the British Mandate over Palestine still reverberate today in the arbitrary division of Palestine and the emergence of Israel as an enclave of the US Global Alliance.
It is for progressive sections of the media to untangle the secret diplomacy of Scott Morrison which brought Britain back to its old East of Suez roles which had fallen by the wayside a half-century ago. ASEAN was founded in 1967 to offer peaceful alternatives to the arms race in the Indo-Pacific Region. It has since expanded to eleven members with the addition of Timor-Leste. This offers the hope of permanent alternatives to the old imperial alliances in South East Asia.
Both sides of Australian mainstream politics want to hoist those imperial umbrellas at great financial and strategic costs to future generations. Continuing to quiz political insiders about the consequences of their strategic and diplomatic policies is imperative in these troubled times. Asking questions should be imperative for all political parties.
This You Tube extract from a Senate Committee hearing in 2018 displays confident and professional comments from Rear Admiral Greg Sammut. Our strategic arrangements should be part of legitimate parliamentary accountability processes as embedded into the text of ANZUS Treaty of 1951-52.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building in these difficult times. Your feedback from readers advances the cause of citizens’ journalism. Full names are not required when making comments. However, a valid email must be submitted if you decide to hit the Replies Button.
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Return to home pagePerhaps Scott Morrison’s multiple ministries did have a purpose for leading us into troubled waters.
More taxpayers money for submarines means that less is available for worthwhile causes like federal support for really just causes
Every assignment for an AUKUS submarine will be fraught with risks.
Our future should not be lost at sea: I was not aware that only three ministers had negotiated AUKUS in secret with military and naval leaders Britain and the USA for a whole year while Australians were recovering from the COVID-crisis.
Hi Denis, thanks for this concise and remarkably restrained and open- minded review of this pretentious, ham-fisted cluster-fuck called AUKUS, extending across and infecting, as it does, both sides of politics.
In my opinion, AUKUS, and the nuklear submarine deal that is its central and defining component, is a big mistake, and VERY OBVIOUSLY so.
But that’s just my opinion – and I’m just an obscure self-employed tradie from west of Sydney, whose actual military expertise is restricted to 15 months’ worth of peace-time, blanks-firing toy-soldiering over 40 years ago.
However, what is not just a matter of opinion, but a fact, is that the decision to commit Australia to a hugely consequential, massively resource-intensive and multi-generational military agenda has been made hastily, covertly, and without soliciting appropriate public and expert opinion, which would have given those with much more relevant knowledge and experience than myself opportunity to submit their views on the wide-ranging technical, strategic, economic, political and geo-political implications.
Thus, as far as I am concerned, the AUKUS agenda has no democratic legitimacy. In fact, the AUKUS decision and its implementation and prospective outcomes seem eerily redolent of that other political cluster-fuck named Brexit.
The reason for my effusive denunciation of the severely abridged political processes leading to the acceptance of AUKUS is Patricia Karvelas’ recent ABC opinion piece about double-haters, i.e. those who despise both sides of politics equally and are devoid of political “brand loyalty”, and the implications for democracy more generally.
Count me in. Not necessarily as a “double-hater”, but certainly a “double-exasperatee”. Patricia (and Tony Barry from RedBridge), tell me, please: What’s the fkn point of bothering with politics at all, if not only us uninformed hoi polloi, but even experts with well-grounded views on particular subject matters don’t get a look-in anymore?
And where do you guys think this trend will lead?
Thanks for the comment, Arnd. I write to promote discussion.
Your question is most welcome: And where do you guys think this trend will lead?
Corporate goals and the military industrial complex are so deeply entangled.
The Cubic Corporation of San Diego which controls the electronic ticketing systems of public transport in many cities around the world is also linked to Cubic Defense. I see Advanced Combat Training Systems of Tel Aviv on the vest list of Cubic Defense Subsidiaries.
The Cubic Defense Subsidiaries: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/26076/000110465911065583/a11-27382_1ex21d1.htm
Just sharing the details is a worthwhile activity. I have never heard of KRP Engineering before I looked at the Defence Supplement with the advertisements from military industrial firms.
Identify the structures of power and influence and news comments evolve logically. Pre-democratic structures as in the ascendency. Our governments seem to know where the power lies.
The Cubic tax account in Australia with the ATO has not been settled with the ATO even for 2021-22 on that ABC list of 800 naughty corporations: . https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-09/831-large-companies-paid-no-tax-in-2021-22-ato-tax-transparency/103079948
Phil Pennington of Radio NZ dared to raise privacy concerns when Cubic extended its control of NZ National Ticketing and national electronic defence contracts in NZ: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/477193/cubic-corporation-confident-of-privacy-compliance-in-public-transport-ticketing-system
Do share my articles and encourage others to comment critically.
My simple article took ages to research. Tilting at neoliberal values is not always encouraged. My Union-the MEAA has no policy relating to AUKUS.
Many readers of the Defence Supplement might have assumed that KRP Engineering is a local company which is expanding our social infrastructure.
Locals also seem to assume that Translink ticketing is a Q Government company when Cubic actually asked for $350 million from the state government to introduce smart ticketing based on swipes from credit cards. No concessional fares are offered from this fare option.
And don’t worry, my copy of the Defence Supplement was left at a bus stop. I do not buy the Australian and the other Murdoch papers.
AUKUS is clearly a financial hazard to Australia at home and abroad in our trading and investment partnerships
Defense expenditure as a percentage of GDP has in modern times aimed for around 2%, albeit for the past decade it was well below 2%. During the Great War (WWI) it went above 35% and WWII, around 25%. The Albanese Labor govt has lifted it to around 2.4% (including AUKUS).
There is no question defense procurement of major operational assets has been a schemozzle, Frequently with the ‘gold braid’ running a system of self-indulgent wish lists of do-all bespoke add-ons to conventional designs, that both failed to integrate and / or had disastrous roll-on affects in time and cost blowouts. And this in turn accumulated into an ad hoc, dysfunction prone ineffectiveness, replete with white elephants.
Suffice it to say, before the last, say 20 years, detailed information on such adventures were not readily available, except through publications such as ‘Janes’, and even then sparse. And successive govts tiptoed around the situation, not wishing to upset the ‘gold braid’, and keeping the vast incompetence and featherbedding under wraps.
Having spent some time consulting on civil projects with a large Oz defense contractor, I learned of their frustrations with the govt department and the ‘gold braid’, who generally haughtily refused advice.
I too have reviewed the latest Defense (suppliers and contractors), and nothing surprises me there.
The Albanese govt has grasped the nettle, taking on the process of strategic renewal, restructure and removal of the tired and depletive old practices. As usual there will be details that remain secret for obvious reasons, and that becomes moreso when dealing with the USA. Albeit, the current govt has been substantially more transparent than past govts.
The brouhaha about AUKUS is mostly driven by speculation and sensationalism, particularly with regard to ‘pillar 1’ and the associations with the UK & USA toxified and discombobulated by FRWNJs and the sensation seeking mainstream media. Few, speculators appear to put much effort into joining the dots.
Here’s some stats on (a href=”https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview201314/DefenceExpenditure”>years of trends of defense expenditure, and the latest expenditure.
Here’s some further Dept of Finance comparative contemporary info on government procurement contracts, well worth a read.
Thanks to AIM Network for giving my article another run dated 21 June 2024. This coincides with negotiations for the release of Julian Assange for daring to speculate about the US Global Alliance and to release appropriate files which should have been in the public domain.
I was shocked to learn in my fairly recent studies that Italy went to war in 1915 as a result of a secret treaty called the Treaty of London. Russia was part of the Allied Alliance at the time. Details of the Treaty were released by the Bolsheviks who withdrew from the Great War after a humiliating treaty with Germany but whistle-bowers had also attempted to release the details. Even the Vatican under Pope Benedict XV was involved in seeking a peace settlement on the Western Front.
In Italy last year, I attempted to speak with the staff of Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna who was preparing to visit China to discuss a peace settlement in the war in Ukraine on a visit to representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing in September 2023.
I did not gain any interviews but I tried at the Cardinal’s suite behind the Cathedral in Bologna.
Pope Francis issued the following statement on 10 March 2024: This statement was covered in The Guardian on 11 March 2024: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/10/pope-francis-criticised-for-saying-ukraine-should-raise-white-flag-and-end-war-with-russia#:~:text=%E2%80%9CI%20believe%20that%20the%20strongest,have%20the%20courage%20to%20negotiate.%E2%80%9D
Pope Francis “I believe that the strongest are those who see the situation, think about the people, and have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate,” he said. “That word negotiate is a brave word. When you see that you are defeated, that things are not working out, to have the courage to negotiate.”10 Mar 2024
Later on my Italian trip, I visited Castiglione del Lago above Lake Trasimeno in Umbrio ( https://www.italia.it/en/umbria/things-to-do/castiglione-del-lagoI)
This was my second visit. It is a long walk from the local station. This time I hired a mountain bike for twenty euros a day from the bike hire in Chiusi at the junction between the main line to Florence and the line to Siena. There are so many hill towns on the Siena Line which I might have visited. Chiusi is not a tourist town and the accommodation was affordable. There are also local bus services to Castiglione which can be identified on the Rome to Rio Site. I was able to use the mountain bike from the local station in Castiglione.
The Church of Maddalena contained a list of the war dead during the 1915-18 war against Germany and Austria. 186,000 Italians died in this war and probably as many from the Spanish flu (https://diocesi.perugia.it/).
When my son was younger, I stayed at the Youth Hostel in nearby Foligno. This had once been a convent and there was a great party in the Court Yard. The Hostel in Salerno south of Rome seems to have reopened. It is close to the Capri ferry and local historic sites like Pompeii and the ruins at Arechi (https://www.hostelsclub.com/en/hostel/yha-ostello-di-salerno).
I might have travelled to Italy this year in June but the air fares were elevated due to the Olympics in Paris next month.
I was still at high school during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. The state high school I attended promoted the values of the British Empire and encouraged participation in the cadets. I was never interested in school cadets. There was real hierarchy in school cadets and capable students could ware an officer’s cap. The cadet officer at my school was also a senior prefect, Prefects had a special lunch room with perks like a radio and record player. Our cadet officer was good at military spin. He arrived at the Math’s class after lunch to tell everyone to be ready for war with Russia and for air raids on the nearby RAAF base. I did not forget this little incident and actually visited Cuba via a change of aircraft in Mexico at Cancun as direct flights to Cuba were not allowed from US airports.
I had the honour of speaking to Her Excellency Tanieris Dieguez La O as Ambassador to Cuba in Brisbane last weekend at an event arranged by the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society and the ETU. https://misiones.cubaminrex.cu/en/articulo/campaign-australia-cuba-love-friends-solidarity-denounce-end-blockade-and-exclusion-cuba
To Cuba with Love: Join the Southern Cross Brigade https://www.cubabrigade.org/
The 40th Southern Cross Brigade (2025), will be held from the 4th until 22nd of January 2025 (inclusive). You can expect a cost of around $2,500AUD (excluding flights) for all Brigade accommodation, basic food and internal travel expenses.
Register via the 2025 information booklet!