Australia’s new submarines could potentially see the U.S. and UK work together to design and build a brand-new submarine class altogether.
The UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the decision was ultimately up to the Australian government, noting it would also be “collaborative.”
“It’s a joint endeavour. Whether that is the sharing of technology, and the understanding of how to do it, the sharing of the build, or the sharing of the design,” he said after a meeting between Australian and UK ministers on Jan. 2.
“The Australian government’s getting exactly to the position where it knows what it wants,” he said.
“I’m pretty confident that it will be a tri-nation project.”
The UK is currently developing the successor to its Astute-class nuclear submarine.
AUKUS was unveiled in September 2021 in a surprise joint announcement between U.S., UK, and Australian leaders that would see Australia armed with nuclear-powered submarines and take part in research cooperation in ground-breaking fields like quantum computing, undersea capabilities, hypersonics, and artificial intelligence.
The Chinese Communist Party has consistently attacked AUKUS on the grounds that it breaches nuclear non-proliferation agreements.
In recent months, there has been speculation that U.S. shipyards will be unable to supply Australia with additional submarines because of a lack of extra capacity.
The nuclear-submarine industry requires not only the right facilities but a highly trained workforce numbering in the tens of thousands. The U.S. and UK governments have pledged to assist Australia with training and upskilling its industry.
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles has downplayed any concerns of delays.
“We’re confident that what we will be announcing in the coming weeks is a pathway that will be able to be delivered by all partners on time, and obviously, we are talking about a program which is not measured in weeks or months but is actually going to take place over years and decades,” he told ABC Radio’s AM on Feb. 1.
The minister is now jet-setting to the United States to hold further discussions on the program.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is reporting that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could also travel to the United States in March to unveil the final plan alongside U.S. President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The UK’s Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific, Anne-Marie Trevalyan said Australia’s submarines would likely be used to patrol the Indo-Pacific and secure trade routes.
“Free and fair-trade work if the waterways are clear and safe,” she told reporters. “A lot of the Royal Navy’s job for several hundred years was chasing pirates to allow those ships that want to move goods around to do so.
“So, the Australian commitment to want to have a next generation of submarines, which they can help assure the region’s security, is one that we are absolutely committed to helping.”
AAP contributed to this article.