While many of the conversations I had last month were centred on the future of naval shipbuilding in Australia, this month it seems the focus is on submarines and in particular, Sea 1000 or Future Submarine.
This issue of ADM comes hard on the heels of ASPI’s “The Submarine Choice” conference in Canberra, which has reopened debate – in the public arena at least – on a range of submarine-related topics, not least of which is whether twelve large conventionally-powered submarines of a design which does not yet exist, are too many.
The ASPI conference will be covered in much greater detail in the June issue of ADM, but Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston’s keynote speech arguably prompted as many questions as it supplied answers.
It would seem that we have all been talking about the Future Submarine for a number of years now and we still don’t really know just how far into the future the capability will be delivered. As a matter of fact, we also really don’t know how many submarines the Navy will get.
Prior to the conference, there had been a fair degree of media speculation that Sea 1000 would be scaled back from the twelve submarines announced in the previous government’s Defence White Paper back in 2009.
However Minister Johnston has stopped short of announcing a reduction in numbers, telling delegates that the strategic objectives for Future Submarine would be re-examined in the new White Paper, due to be released in about a year from now.
The Minister stated that he is focussing on capability, not quantity. But what capability is required and will the delivery of that capability be affected by whether the Future Submarine is an Evolved Collins, or a new design?
To look at the numbers first, there seems to be a fair bit of hysteria around the cost of building and sustaining twelve large submarines, without consideration of the facts. It is very unlikely, for example, that the RAN would ever have twelve submarines in commission at any given time – at least, not without sacrificing the surface fleet in order to crew them.
A rolling build program, where boats are built in ‘flights’ would therefore seem a logical way of ensuring economies of scale and maintaining a strategic submarine construction capability over a relatively large timeframe – something the pro-shipbuilding lobby have been proposing for some time.
Would it not be better to view Sea 1000 in terms of the longevity of two strategic capabilities – the boats themselves and the industry which builds and sustains them, rather than getting caught up over a number?
Submarines are a strategic capability and in recent weeks we have seen the Swedish government going to extraordinary lengths to regain control over its underwater capability, lost when Kockums was sold to ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems of Germany some years ago. In fact Sweden has said that the two strategic capabilities it considers an imperative to retain control of are fighter aircraft and submarines.
Like every other country on the planet, Australia’s strategic requirements for a submarine are classified and it is therefore difficult to publicly debate whether Australia needs to build a conventional submarine capable of patrolling off Vladivostok or the mouth of the Pearl River, for example.
Whether the Abbott government’s strategic requirements for a submarine capability are the same as the previous government’s will be made known, in very broad and unclassified terms, in the forthcoming White Paper.
But whether this strategic requirement has been tempered by short-term budget requirements is yet to be seen. And if the strategic requirement has been tempered, what impact will this have on the dimensions of Future Submarine, or the number to be built under Sea 1000?
Senator Johnston told delegates at the ASPI conference that the Future Submarine would need to be at sea in the early or mid 2030s if a capability gap is to be avoided – assuming that the Collins Service Life Extension (SLEP) program goes ahead as mooted.
It is now six years since the Future Submarine program was announced to the world in 2009 and we still do not know whether it will be an evolved Collins or a new design. We do not know who Australia would partner with to develop this capability, we do not know even if the submarines will be built here in Australia – as Minister Johnston pointed out, it is desirable to build them here but it is not a blank cheque. Finally, of course, we cannot even be sure how many submarines will be built.
Some of these questions will be answered by the White Paper and subsequent Defence Capability Plan, but they are at least another year away yet and the clock is ticking.
