Australia unveiled A$3.9 billion (US$2.8 billion) in spending yesterday as a “down payment” on a new facility to build nuclear submarines under the tripartite AUKUS security pact with the UK and the US.
The AUKUS pact aims to arm Australia with a fleet of cutting-edge submarines from the US and would provide for cooperation in developing an array of warfare technologies.
The submarines, the sale of which would begin in 2032, lie at the heart of Australia’s strategy of improving its long-range strike capabilities in the Pacific region, particularly against China.
Photo: Pool via REUTERS
The deal could cost Canberra up to US$235 billion over the next 30 years, and also includes the technology to build its own vessels in the future.
Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said the facility in Osborne, near the southern city of Adelaide, would be at the heart of that.
In the long term, an estimated A$30 billion is expected to be spent on the facility.
“The transformation underway at Osborne shows Australia is on track to deliver the sovereign capability to build our nuclear-powered submarines for decades to come,” he said.
The investment in the Submarine Construction Yard “is critical to delivering Australia’s conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.
“We are accelerating AUKUS opportunities to secure Australia’s future defense capability and create lasting prosperity and jobs for the state,” he added.
In September last year, Canberra also revealed a US$8 billion investment to be spent over a decade to transform a shipbuilding and maintenance precinct in Perth, Western Australia, into facilities for a future fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
Australia had a major bust-up with France in 2021, when it canceled a multibillion-dollar deal to buy a fleet of diesel-powered submarines from Paris and went with the AUKUS program instead.
The pact was thrown into doubt in June last year, when Washington said it was launching a review into whether it aligned with US President Donald Trump’s “America first” agenda, but in December, the Pentagon said it had cleared that hurdle and that Trump had ordered it “full steam ahead.”
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