Here’s why the news about Australia getting nuclear submarines with the help of the US and UK is a big deal<\/p>\n
If you haven’t noticed, there’s been a lot of hype around about a deal to make Australia one of the few countries in the world equipped with nuclear submarines.<\/p>\n
After all, it’s not every day the UK Prime Minister and US President join Prime Minister Scott Morrison for a live defence announcement (even if\u00a0the latter appeared to forget Mr Morrison’s name, referring to him as “that fellow Down Under”).<\/p>\n
But if you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, and why the government cares so much about submarines, here’s what you need to know.<\/p>\n
Why is Australia getting nuclear submarines?<\/strong><\/p>\n Australia already has a fleet of submarines, known as Collins Class, but they’re getting old.<\/p>\n For more than a decade, Australia has been seeking to upgrade and replace them, and we were several years into a deal with a French shipbuilder to have\u00a012 new submarines built.<\/p>\n But that program has come with\u00a0delays and blowouts, and would have delivered conventional diesel-electric submarines, like the Collins Class.<\/p>\n Australia’s\u00a0instead going to pull out of that deal and form a new partnership with the US and\u00a0UK. Those countries will share their secrets to get an Australian nuclear fleet off the ground (or under the water).<\/p>\n Why would the UK and US do this?<\/p>\n They trust Australia with their technology\u00a0and know that a boosted\u00a0Australian presence in the Indo-Pacific will exert Western influence in the region as China’s power grows.<\/p>\n “This is about investing in our\u00a0greatest source of strength \u2014 our\u00a0alliances \u2014 and updating them to\u00a0better meet the threats of today and\u00a0tomorrow,” US President Joe Biden said of the partnership.<\/p>\n Mr Morrison said it was now in Australia’s interest to\u00a0 bail on the deal with France and instead go nuclear.<\/p>\n “[It]\u00a0is not a change of mind, it’s a\u00a0change of need,” he said.<\/p>\n “The developments that have occurred\u00a0since 2016 do now make a\u00a0nuclear-powered submarine fleet a\u00a0feasible option for Australia.”<\/p>\n A small number of countries are capable of running nuclear submarines, and all are nuclear-armed powers.<\/p>\n Only the US, UK,\u00a0France, Russia, China and India currently have nuclear subs in the water, so the deal will see Australia joining an exclusive club.<\/p>\n But Peter Jennings from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said\u00a0the real impact was what this meant for Australia’s naval capability and influence in the waters surrounding it.<\/p>\n “America is going to be looking\u00a0to Australia to play a leading role\u00a0in this part of the world,\u00a0stabilising the Pacific Islands\u00a0region and\u00a0South-East Asia,” he said.<\/p>\n “It’s not\u00a0surprising that the countries of the\u00a0Indo-Pacific,\u00a0including the United\u00a0States, now feel that there has to\u00a0be some response [to China’s growing power].”<\/p>\n However Chris Barrie, who was the chief of defence in the late 90s and early 2000s, said nuclear submarines had been discussed for decades\u00a0and would not dramatically transform the region.<\/p>\n “Some in China might well say this is\u00a0a response to our concerns over\u00a0China, but, you know, the\u00a0conversation about acquiring\u00a0nuclear-powered submarines has been\u00a0going on since the 1960s,” he said.<\/p>\n In general, submarines are also\u00a0incredibly expensive. The 12-submarine project\u00a0that Australia just ditched was worth $90 billion.<\/p>\n There’s no word yet on how much the new nuclear deal may cost\u00a0and it’s unclear how much Australia might have to pay to scuttle its deal with France.<\/p>\n Mr Morrison said $2.4 billion had already been spent on that program.<\/p>\n What does it mean that these submarines are nuclear?<\/strong><\/p>\n There’s a difference between a\u00a0nuclear-powered submarine and a nuclear-armed submarine.<\/p>\n The subs being acquired by Australia won’t have nuclear weapons, but they will have nuclear reactors instead of conventional diesel-electric propulsion systems.<\/p>\n That gives them a huge advantage over conventional\u00a0submarines, as they’re\u00a0faster, quieter, need to surface less often and don’t need to be refuelled.<\/p>\n But there are those with concerns about the safety of\u00a0nuclear reactors.<\/p>\n Greens leader Adam Bandt referred to nuclear submarines as “floating Chernobyls”, and said his party would vehemently oppose the new partnership.<\/p>\n Australia doesn’t have much domestic nuclear capability, and the UK, US will work with Australia over the next 18 months to determine how the plan will be delivered, including how the subs will be fuelled.<\/p>\n “The management of waste,\u00a0the disposal of the submarine at the end of its life, all of those are issues where\u00a0we will be engaging with our US and\u00a0UK partners,” Defence department secretary Greg Moriarty said.<\/p>\n So what happens to the France submarine deal?<\/strong><\/p>\n Australia will be pulling out of the deal to have French shipbuilder Naval Group deliver a dozen conventional submarines, however the details on\u00a0how that will happen and\u00a0what that\u00a0might cost remain unclear.<\/p>\n “As a Prime Minister, I must\u00a0make decisions that are in\u00a0Australia’s national security,” Mr Morrison said.<\/p>\n “I know\u00a0that France would do the same.”<\/p>\n The deal was inked in 2016. Responding to Australia’s decision to end it, the French government said it could only “note and regret” the move.<\/p>\n “This is a decision contrary to the letter and the spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia,” a French Foreign Ministry statement said.<\/p>\n Mr Jennings said the decision to ditch the French deal in favour of nuclear subs was not without irony.<\/p>\n “When we chose the\u00a0French-designed submarine a few\u00a0years ago, we actually took a\u00a0nuclear-powered submarine and have\u00a0been spending millions of dollars\u00a0turning it into a diesel submarine,” he said.<\/p>\n “We appear to be walking away\u00a0from that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here’s why the news about Australia getting nuclear submarines with the help of the US and UK is a big deal If you haven’t noticed, there’s been a lot of hype around about a deal to make Australia one of the few countries in the world equipped with nuclear submarines. After all, it’s not every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3373,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world"],"views":2,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3374,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371\/revisions\/3374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhich countries have nuclear submarines?<\/strong><\/p>\n