The AUKUS pact is already against the clock

Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are heading to New York for the UN General Assembly, and then for meetings with President Biden in Washington, in the wake of the recent AUKUS security pact. They are trying to get some urgency behind the climate change summit in Glasgow in November, where the usually ebullient Johnson has already begun sounding a note of caution – telling reporters on his plane that he thought he had “a six out of ten chance” of succeeding in the goals he had set for the gathering.

He hasn’t even gone as far as making such an assessment of the outcome of his talks with Team Biden. There has been some vague talk from the commentators that this will be about restoring relations after the Trump era, and clearing the air after the inter-alliance mistrust over Afghanistan.

In discussing the meeting with the journalists, it appears that he has decided to leave his famous weapon of “boosterism” at home. There is an almost uncharacteristic element of tough realism – rhetorical caution even.

This could have something to do with the crucial mid-week meeting of service chiefs, including, on the British side, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, current head of the Royal Navy and a leading candidate to take over as head of all British armed services as Chief of the Defence Staff.

The service meetings will thrash out the main lines of the new Australia-UK-US defence pact, AUKUS, which has enraged the French and Chinese in different ways. It can’t have come as a surprise to either Paris nor Beijing, given their recent difficulties with Scott Morrison’s Canberra government.

Easily missed might be the almost feverish urgency now building up behind the defence pact. Following the initial announcement of the deal last week, it was stated that it would take 18 months to “scope” who was to do what in the new arrangement. This has led to reports that Australia would now build a version of the American Virginia class submarine or a version of the Royal Navy’s equivalent Astute class hunter-killer boats. This might take anywhere up to 2040 to reach fruition – especially as Australia has no indigenous nuclear industry of its own, and given the trickiness in building an Astute or Virginia boat – “more difficult than a NASA moon shot,” according to one former British submarine commander.

“When I heard the announcement, I thought that it didn’t make sense – the whole thing was pretty crackers,” a recent former head of the Royal Navy confessed to me. “Perhaps, I thought, the main intent was the shock of the announcement itself. It was to serve the Chinese notice that the Australians were now in an alliance intending to push back against the Chinese aggression and expansion across the Pacific region. In that case, I think it has succeeded pretty well.

“But the idea of the Australians building their own nuclear submarines within 10, or even 20 years, is wild. Think of it. If the Australians aim to get their version Astute or Virginia in the 2030s you might ask, what’s the point?

“Technology is moving so fast, they will be out of date. Underwater warfare is now moving into the use of remote, unmanned vehicles.”

The deployment of underwater drones, some acting autonomously and with automatic weapons suites, raises the questions of legality and the rules of engagement. “The way things are going,” one retired admiral put it, “we won’t be able to fight at all, given all the rules and regulations, and international conventions now in the pipeline. Of course the other side won’t be bothered, and will fight on their own terms.”

“The timelines are very tight”, the British Naval command states privately on the prospects of getting the new arrangement up and running – certainly much tighter than the notion of an 18-month “scoping” exercise might suggest. The main reason is the ramping up of Chinese aggression across the region, and in particular the new mood of hostility towards Australia. All this persuaded the Morrison government that it had to improve its naval preparations, and had to go for the nuclear submarine option if it could.

“China has been trying to close off the South China Sea and the East China Sea – and what was particularly shocking for Australians is the virtual shutting down of Hong Kong,” said an academic adviser to the Australian defence department, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said that when Australia pressed Beijing for some explanation of the origins of the Coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, the Chinese responded with economic warfare, as he put it, “amounting to some Australian $7bn (about £3.71bn) of sanctions.”

Last year a list of 14 grievances and demands from Beijing was leaked by government sources to the Australian press. The list included demands that the Australian media stopped all unfavourable comment about China, and academic studies into China on matters like Taiwan should be curbed, legislation against foreign agency interference should be waived, and that China’s Huawei should be allowed into Australia’s new 5G system. “It was pretty childish, as well as shocking,” said one academic. China also wanted the Canberra government to block adverse comment about its attempt to bring the State of Victoria into the Belt and Road initiative.

Meanwhile, China has been increasing its naval activity across the region, harassing fishing fleets and laying claim to atolls and artificial islands as air and maritime bases. “This year there have been remote controlled vessels washed up on Indonesian islands,” says Natalie Sambhi, a strategic analyst and journalist based in Perth. Academics such as the defence adviser I spoke to are worried that Xi Jinping may be about to mount an operation around Taiwan – and this gives the announcement of the AUKUS pact real urgency. “Xi has said that he wants to resolve the Taiwan issue within five years – and he has said he will use force if necessary.”

The strategic analyst believes that the pact is about both more and less than Australia developing its own nuclear submarine force over the next two decades. “We were gob-smacked that the Americans agreed to a deal to share their nuclear secrets. It had only happened once before, with the Brits back in 1958 and 1959. But it turned out that we hadn’t asked – at least not recently.”

Australia decided some time ago that the deal with France – signed in 2016 with France to build up to 12 Shortfin Barracuda diesel-electric submarines – was not going anywhere. The French could not claim surprise at the cancellation – only at the crude way in which the whole termination was announced last week just an hour before the three leaders announced the AUKUS pact. This lack of diplomatic nicety even shocked some in Australian government circles by all accounts.

“Relations with the French, especially Naval Group [the French contractor which is largely government-owned] had become pretty toxic,” said an insider at Airbus, the European consortium led by France and Germany. “There were delays and arguments all along the way, and it was known that the Canberra government was fed up. I am sorry to say that this also applies to another French deal to supply naval versions of NH90 Eurocopter to the Australian Navy – which has been little short of disastrous.” It is understood, too, that the Australians are giving up on their European Tiger attack helicopters because they fail to meet their requirements.

Earlier this year the Australians actually told Naval Group that they would not be signing the second stage contract for their Barracuda submarines. There was a debate about whether the boats should be put together only at the government dock facility in Adelaide, or whether some should be assembled in Western Australia, where the submarine service has its headquarters at HMAS Stirling, near Perth. Moreover, as the contract dragged on, the French began insisting increasing elements of the planned flotilla should be built in France.

Construction capacity is a major issue. The UK and US have three yards – Connecticut, Newport News, and Barrow in Furness – and they are operating at all out capacity. The Virginia programme is behind schedule, as is the programme to build 12 new 20,000 ton Columbia class ballistic missile boats. The Bae Systems yard at Barrow is working on Agamemnon and Agincourt, the last two of the Astute class, and building the first two of the Navy’s next batch of Trident boats, Dreadnought and Valiant. “There is no more construction space at all,” according to a submarine commander. So it is difficult for either the US or UK to start right away to build a new Australian hunter-killer boat from scratch.

One plan is for the US or UK to lend one of the existing Virginia class boats (or, in the British case, Astute or Trafalgar class) for Australian training and deployment operations. There is also the question of keeping Australia’s existing six Collins class diesel-electric boats running. Almost certainly this means a boost for the Royal Navy in deployment, funding, manning and investment in research.

“It means closer working between the three nations on nuclear technology and future submarine operations,” said the Australian defence academic. “They know they have to work together to enhance capacity – and it means sharing secrets. In the long term I think the emphasis will be on unmanned surveillance drones. All three navies now have niche capabilities that are world-beating – for instance, Australia builds probably the world’s best towed array sensors.

“The cooperation will go well beyond submarines into matters like the application of Artificial Intelligence, cyber computing – as we know Boris Johnson has insisted,” says the defence academic. “I think the pact will go wider and deeper – and probably extend to Canada very soon through the Five Eyes arrangement.

“They will want to keep regional allies like South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia on board. This is very important – and we understand that the French are more upset about not being included in the information-sharing pact more than losing the submarine contract.”

Meanwhile China is building 15 new warships each year to America’s five. Currently the People’s Liberation Navy has 70 submarines in its order of battle, and plans to add a further 20. However, the Chinese are thought to be behind the US and Britain on submarine surveillance, sensor and radar capability.

A growing view is that the next generation of submarines expected to be under active discussion in Washington won’t be an evolution of the existing, albeit highly successful, craft like the Virginias and Astutes. These will be more like an armed underwater mother ship, launching unmanned attack and surveillance craft. These “gliders” could be left to sleep or loiter for months at a time.

At the Washington meetings of the service chiefs most eyes and intelligence will be focused on the Straits of Taiwan – and Xi Jinping’s new mood of aggressive isolation. He has refused to attend the UN General Assembly, and has not replied to next month’s G-20 summit in Italy. He is not coming to the Glasgow COP-26 summit, and may not even send a senior Chinese government delegation.

Is he planning to make his move on Taiwan? That is the question of the moment.