One of the other big issues is Australia is much more serious in its concerns about China than France is, for the obvious reasons of geography. Beyond the technical parameters and cost savings involved with the submarines, probably the core strategic consideration is actually that the United States is a much more reliable ally when it comes to confronting China than is France.
France has sought for many decades to develop strategic autonomy from the United States (not a bad thing), but it also wants to pull the EU more away from NATO and into an EU-centered military force. One of the major issues with that is a good chunk of NATO is still worried about the thing NATO was chiefly built to protect against–which is Russia. While Germany for example might actually see France as a better partner for handling Eurocentric issues, like the problems in the Sahel and things of that nature, and Germany shares France’s views on Russia–namely a stance of not being too confrontational with Russia–countries at real risk of Russian aggression in NATO, Bulgaria / Estonia / Latvia / Lithuania / Poland etc have a very different view of the chummy nature to French and German thinking on Russia. That situation is repeated with China. France wants to “confront” China in the Indo-Pacific on the same sort of terms it “confronts” Russia, which means “lightly, with a focus on maintaining good economic relationships”, but the problem is clearly sometimes those economic deals at least vis-a-vis Russia, have been put ahead of the serious security concerns of the Eastern European NATO members. It isn’t surprising Australia sees this and figures France may not really be the best ally for the kind of defensive posture desired towards China.
This might be hopelessly naïve, but under what circumstances might Australia need nuclear submarines? If things get bad enough they’re actually used, aren’t we all kind of fucked?
Nuclear submarine just refers to the propulsion system. Nuclear submarines have a few advantages over diesel-electric, relating to ease of keeping them at sea for longer periods of time, ability to keep them submerged for longer periods of time etc.
I’m aware of that, and also aware that Australia doesn’t apparently plan to have nuclear missiles on board. But that doesn’t preclude non-nuclear missiles. And if the subs aren’t going to be used for launching nuclear missiles, what will they be used for?
I’m confused by the question, are you asking why Australia needs submarines or why they need nuclear submarines? The difference between the subs in question is one of propulsion, not whether they launch missiles or not. These submarines are not AFAIK being designed as ballistic missile subs, which are a different class of submarine entirely. These are “fast-attack” submarines whose primary armaments will be torpedoes for use against enemy ships. Just like the Virginia and Astute class nuclear fast attack submarines in the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy respectively, they likely will be able to launch a number of cruise missiles like the Tomahawk, but these aren’t ballistic missile submarines.
Part of Australia getting these subs is for deterrence – not nuclear deterrence, but “we’re very serious about defending our interests in the Pacific” deterrence. Nuclear fast attack subs can go anywhere, and stay there for a long time, only limited by the amount of food onboard for the crew (nuclear subs can make fresh water and air out of seawater). In that sense, they’re not being acquired to be “used” (as in to sink Chinese ships or launch cruise missiles at Chinese targets), but just to be operated competently in the Pacific and “show the flag” (both of Australia and of US/allied interests in the region).
Yep. Just the public announcement of building these subs, largely irrespective of propulsion system, means they’ve fulfilled much of their purpose.
China knows that they cannot operate entirely with impunity; if a red line gets drawn, and China crosses it, then they must lose one or more assets.
No one expects us to ever get near such a red line.
But going down the hypothetical of that happening, I think it’s entirely feasible that while China would no doubt respond militarily, they would not want things to escalate in the first instance.
It’s also notable while the size of the sub order may seem small (12 subs) it actually adds considerably to the overall AUKUS sub force in the region. The U.S. Pacific Fleet has about 38 subs give or take under its command at the moment (some are attack subs, some are SSBNs), so 12 is actually a pretty good addition, particularly from a country of Australia’s size.
If I’m not mistaken, it’s only going to be 8 nuclear-propelled submarines. The original order was for 12 French diesel subs, but when the Aussies switched to American, they also reduced the size of the order to 8 subs as well.
Ah, I hadn’t heard that piece. While obviously 33% less nuclear submarine, 8 would still be a significant deployment for a country the size of Australia. France for example only operates 6 nuclear attack subs (France also operates 4 nuclear-armed ballistic subs, which Australia has given no indication it intends to operate any of those.)
Incidentally, upthread one suggestion was that France could make subs for Vietnam, with the suggestion that the western powers could collectively subsidize the cost.
However, surprisingly, on googling, I found that Vietnam already has 6 diesel subs.
It does, but mind that almost all of Vietnam’s military strength is wrapped up in their standing army and the simple fact they’ve shown they’re willing to fight to the bitter end against incursion–China and America both realized they wanted no piece of that in the 1970s.
Their Navy and Air Force tend to be older equipment that have serious operational limitations due to limited logistics. The Kilo class submarines Vietnam operates are a 1990s update to the 1980 Soviet sub, and are less than half the tonnage of for example an Astute class nuclear sub (which is around 1000ish tons smaller than the USN Virginia class subs.) Now size ain’t everything, but displacement has been a traditional means of assessing naval strength for many years.
The Kilo class subs honestly aren’t that bad per se, but a lot goes into keeping a submarine force viable militarily, many of the operators of the Kilo subs tend to be middle or lower tier powers that were looking to save money, and consequently don’t maintain the subs that well. In the secondary market of these subs there have been reports of many of them being kept in minimally operating condition.
That all makes sense, but bear in mind that the game here is not to attempt to be the military equal of China. It’s just about showing that you have teeth.
It seems the kilo-class subs are sufficient for that, and Vietnam would not gain much strategically from adding to the ranks or upgrading them.
Although I guess the argument might be that eventually they will be completely obsolete, and you need to procure replacements now to be ready in time. But AIUI, the main thing making any subs obsolete is noisy vessels becoming too detectable in which case replacing diesels with diesels would be an odd choice.
Diesels (actually diesel-electric) can be quieter in tactical situations than nuclear-propelled subs.
Nuclear-propelled subs require pumps operating at all times to take heat from the reactor and circulate the coolant through the propulsion system. These pumps can be made extremely quiet, but there will still be some amount of low-level noise generated.
Diesel-electric subs, on the other hand, can use diesel engines to both charge a bank of batteries and as propulsion, and can use the batteries for some amount of time without the diesel engines being operated at all. So diesel boats rigged to run silent can be quieter than nuclear boats.
The US Navy doesn’t operate any diesel boats (at least, not in significant numbers) because the mission demands a worldwide reach, for which the range advantage of nuclear propulsion systems is vital. Other countries who are more concerned about defending their littoral regions will be more prone to go with diesels.