Aukus

[OttoVonBismarck]

They aren't being screwed over. The AUKUS deal specifically calls for 8 nuclear powered submarines to be built by Australia, with U.S. technological assistance. There was never anything in the AUKUS deal that gave Australia a guarantee to be able to buy off the line nuclear submarines from either the United States or the United Kingdom.

Maybe among politicians and pundits that was an oft-speculated option, and a desirable one because it was understood that Australian production of nuclear submarines will take many years to be feasible--but there was no agreement by the U.S. or U.K. to sell Australia a specific amount of submarines, the agreement was that the U.S. and U.K. would provide technological assistance so that Australia could build 8 of its own submarines.

The U.S. is not at all screwing anyone. Australia hoped that in light of moving away from one program, to another more complex technology, it could fill in the gap as its Collins class subs age with leased or purchased subs from the US/UK--but no guarantee of that was ever signed or offered. It's also not impossible we could set them up with something, to be honest. This article is a worst case scenario analysis.

[Berkut]

I think we can with 100% confidence predict that there will be news articles about how impossible this will be, and other news articles about how it is definitely going to happen, for the next decade or two.

It's pretty much exactly like reading the 400 articles over the last decade or two about how the F-35 was a complete failure, will never fly, cannot do what anyone says it will do, etc., etc., etc. None of those articles actually told anyone anything, because they were all completely predictable regardless of whether or not the underlying facts were true or not.

If the F-35 was a great plane that had some entirely expected and normal cost overruns and teething problems, you would see 400 articles about how doomed it was and what a complete disaster the entire program was.

If it was the disaster the articles predicted, you would see those same articles.

Counter-example: The Seawolf attack sub project. In that case, it turned out that the doom and gloom predictions were largely correct, and overall the project was pretty much a bust. But you could not tell the difference, for the most part. In both cases, there was a happy press ready to print whatever narrative, on either side, would get people to click on their stories. And "The US fucked up procurement program X!" always gets some clicks.

Zoupa, you can be sure that there will be a ready supply of more articles about how much of a completely impossible deal this was for Australia. That will be true right up until they get their first sub operational, and will be exactly equally true if they never get a sub out of the deal at all.

What we do know is that the Virginia class boats are excellent weapons, under serial production right now, and the US has committed to including Australia in their plans for that production. What that actually ends up looking like is still unknown, and nobody (barring a leak that has not happened yet) will know what those plans are until they actually are revealed. Supposition about what the US is willing to do or not do, or what makes sense from a geopolitical standpoint or not, isn't actually "news".

[grumbler]

The plan all along was for Australia to build the submarines, so the reports that Australia will have to build the submarines is fully in line with the plan for Australia to build the submarines.  No one is getting "screwed" here.

I think that the more interesting question is: how is Australia going to get the trained crew their subs will need?  Even if they started cutting steel tomorrow, their first sub would enter service after their last sub veterans retire.  Joint training seems the way to go, but joint training with the USN or very different joint training with the RN?

Edit:  Ninja'd

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's pretty easy to shit on defense procurement, I do not know of a country without procurement headaches. Note that the French-Australian sub deal was beset with nonstop problems and negative press as well. Some of the same Australian politicians who are decrying AUKUS actually were grilling Australian admirals over problems with the French diesel subs just a few years ago.

That doesn't mean "true failure" cannot occur, look at the USN's Zumwalt program for example. That's a "true failure." Something like the F-35 is just an example of "problematic" procurement, but it actually produced lots of ultimately high-quality planes (800+ so far, with the platform expected to be in operation until the 2070s), just probably not at a great cost margin, and it will continue to produce many more planes. Then there's programs like the B-2 stealth, which aren't really true failures, but had limited achievements.

[Jacob]

Keep in mind, also, that Australia just announced a review of defense posture and force structure so there'll be a whole bunch of analysis and opinion floating around - both in terms of worst-case contingencies, and in terms of "I'm arguing this to push a specific policy I favour".

[grumbler]

Counter-example: The Seawolf attack sub project. In that case, it turned out that the doom and gloom predictions were largely correct, and overall the project was pretty much a bust. But you could not tell the difference, for the most part. In both cases, there was a happy press ready to print whatever narrative, on either side, would get people to click on their stories. And "The US fucked up procurement program X!" always gets some clicks.

The Seawolf project was not a bust at all.  They are incredibly capable boats with a corresponding price tag.  The end of the Cold War left them without a mission, though, because they were far too expensive to build for general-purpose submarine duties.  They did, however, demonstrate the validity of their technological innovations, and we (I say "we" because I was involved) used a lot of that technology, scaled down and redesigned to reduce costs, on the Virginia-class design that replaced the Seawolf design.

[Berkut]

Counter-example: The Seawolf attack sub project. In that case, it turned out that the doom and gloom predictions were largely correct, and overall the project was pretty much a bust. But you could not tell the difference, for the most part. In both cases, there was a happy press ready to print whatever narrative, on either side, would get people to click on their stories. And "The US fucked up procurement program X!" always gets some clicks.

The Seawolf project was not a bust at all.  They are incredibly capable boats with a corresponding price tag.  The end of the Cold War left them without a mission, though, because they were far too expensive to build for general-purpose submarine duties.  They did, however, demonstrate the validity of their technological innovations, and we (I say "we" because I was involved) used a lot of that technology, scaled down and redesigned to reduce costs, on the Virginia-class design that replaced the Seawolf design.

No argument from me. I am using the term "bust" from the standpoint of those who are going to fairly look at a project that cost a shitload of money, and resulted in 2 boats being built (or was it 3).

It is fair to note that that is a bust in that a lot of money was spent that in hindsight ought not to have been spent for two super subs.

I agree that there is just as valid, or more valid, argument to be made that the totality of the project was a net gain, and the VA class boats are the nearly direct result.

edit: Otto's Zumwalt would be a better example, but I was trying to get a sub specific counter to my F-35 example.

[Sheilbh]

I think there's a slight conflation of different things going on there.

When AUKUS was announced the first stage was 18 months (which is coming up in spring 2023) to scope it technically and work out which model of next generation sub Australia wants. But the stated target for getting one was 2038. It's a big defence procurement project so that may slide and I've no doubt the Australian MoD are looking at risk of that slipping past 2040. But that's what the deal is (plus other technology sharing/cooperation).

The issue is Australia has a gap now - Dutton wanted to buy submarines before 2030 to help cover that, but it wasn't part of AUKUS which is next generation ships, and it might not be possible. It looks like a bit of domestic positioning over this too - incoming Labor government discovers SNAFU/mismanagement on big defence procurement and manages expectations v outgoing Liberals suddenly start flagging capacity gap and saying it needs to be fixed by 2030. Both of those points look to me like the parties developing attack lines on each other (and both are probably true/fair).

[Jacob]

Reading the article, I don't think it's "Australia fucked up procurement" or "the US screwed Australia". To me it reads as a clear statement of the complex - but expected - problem space that Australia has to navigate. Decisions have to be made (with price tages in terms of $ and time), and trade-offs considered... but there doesn't seem to be anything shocking there.

[Berkut]

It's pretty easy to shit on defense procurement, I do not know of a country without procurement headaches. Note that the French-Australian sub deal was beset with nonstop problems and negative press as well. Some of the same Australian politicians who are decrying AUKUS actually were grilling Australian admirals over problems with the French diesel subs just a few years ago.

That doesn't mean "true failure" cannot occur, look at the USN's Zumwalt program for example. That's a "true failure." Something like the F-35 is just an example of "problematic" procurement, but it actually produced lots of ultimately high-quality planes (800+ so far, with the platform expected to be in operation until the 2070s), just probably not at a great cost margin, and it will continue to produce many more planes. Then there's programs like the B-2 stealth, which aren't really true failures, but had limited achievements.

Indeed. 

I was surprised Zoupa was so naive as to give much credence to a story that used as its source a minor Australian politician.

I mean....really? You think it is newsworthy that there exists some politician in Australia who is grumbling about a defense procurement project?

[Jacob]

Indeed.

I was surprised Zoupa was so naive as to give much credence to a story that used as its source a minor Australian politician.

I mean....really? You think it is newsworthy that there exists some politician in Australia who is grumbling about a defense procurement project?

Come on... Zoupa has every right to poke every little stick he can at this, for two very solid reasons:

1. To defend the wounded pride of France

2. It generates an interesting conversation here that we'd otherwise not have had.

[Sheilbh]

Keep in mind, also, that Australia just announced a review of defense posture and force structure so there'll be a whole bunch of analysis and opinion floating around - both in terms of worst-case contingencies, and in terms of "I'm arguing this to push a specific policy I favour".

Yes - and there's been a huge shift in Australian politics over the last ten years from the big issue being "lucky country" politics of how to handle really solid economic growth to China and defence being central issues. I think that's the key issue that drove AUKUS and will drive fixing the short-term gap - they assessed that the risk for Australia from when it was commissioning a next generation conventional fleet has changed. That motivated moving from conventional to nuclear, but it also means that risks of a capacity gap that were seen as something you could take in the short-term are now higher and maybe need a fix.

But I think you're right - there'll be a lot of stuff going round with a new Labor government coming in and formulating a review. Particularly given that, historically, Labor have tended to be a bit more pro-China (I think Paul Keating is literally employed by several Chinese SOEs ). I've heard Kevin Rudd's new book on China and the US, The Avoidable War, is pretty good but haven't read it.

[Berkut]

Indeed.

I was surprised Zoupa was so naive as to give much credence to a story that used as its source a minor Australian politician.

I mean....really? You think it is newsworthy that there exists some politician in Australia who is grumbling about a defense procurement project?

Come on... Zoupa has every right to poke every little stick he can at this, for two very solid reasons:

1. To defend the wounded pride of France

2. It generates an interesting conversation here that we'd otherwise not have had.

Well sure, but then I have the same right to poke back.

And lets not kid ourselves, this is 100% about #1. It's not like he cares about Australia, since the deal they have made is pretty obviously radically better for Australia in every way.

[Sheilbh]

Reading the article, I don't think it's "Australia fucked up procurement" or "the US screwed Australia". To me it reads as a clear statement of the complex - but expected - problem space that Australia has to navigate. Decisions have to be made (with price tages in terms of $ and time), and trade-offs considered... but there doesn't seem to be anything shocking there.

Although to be clear if Australia didn't fuck up defence procurement it would be the first country ever to have avoided that and we should all learn from it

I don't think they did - I think the risk in their region changed. It's possible that in the 2000s and early 2010s Australia (who were not alone in this) underestimated/miscalculated the risk around China.

[Berkut]

I am a bit surprised that there is this capability problem with procuring more subs, either American or British.

I mean, it is no surprise that there isn't much capabiity to increase product tomorrow, or next year, or even a couple years from now.

But it is surprising that even with a decade of lead time, neither Brit or American builders can expand their ability to built billion dollar subs when there is a ready, waiting, and guaranteed buyer for them...?