SYDNEY:Despite strong political support, a commitment to fund the initiative and an eager industrial base, serious questions remain about whether Australia — and to an extent the United States — can meet the promises of the trilateral agreement to deliver nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.
Finalized in March, the submarine pillar of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States agreement known as AUKUS lays out a four stage process beginning with embedded training for Australian service members and port visits by U.K -designed SSN AUKUS, which the United Kingdom will build in the 2030s and Australia will construct in the early 2040s.
Australia has been laying the groundwork in terms of the policy, infrastructure, people and organizational infrastructure to manage a nuclear power program similar to the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s Naval Reactors Program, Clark said.
The question will be: to what degree can Australia do that truly independently of the United States, or is their equivalent of the Naval Reactors Program essentially an extension of the US.
“And when it comes to nuclear maintenance, I think it’s going to be a tough road because just the number of people you need, the training they need is going to be hard to quickly ramp up here in Australia,” Clark said.
Sam Roggeveen, director of the international security program at Australia’s Lowy Institute, said in an interview he’s in the minority of skeptics of the strategic value of the AUKUS program, but he’s in the majority of those who question Australia’s ability to deliver.
“There’s widespread skepticism among defense commentators and observers about Australia’s capacity particularly to build submarines on shore and to support the capability,” he said.
Roggeveen noted Australia’s longest-serving foreign minister, Alexander Downer — who supports the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines — recently said he has doubts about Australia’s ability to build the SSN-AUKUS.
He told reporters at the conference the bulk of Australia’s investment in the AUKUS program will be directed toward building domestic capability.
“This will be one of the most significant industry endeavors in our country’s history, getting onto the horse of being able to produce, actually manufacture, a nuclear-powered submarine is a massive endeavor,” Marles said.
” One of the biggest challenges the country will face is building the workforce needed to construct and operate the submarines, he said.
“It’s why we are establishing an academy at the Osborne [Naval Shipyard], which will be focused on that trade-level skill, to make sure that we are growing that part of the workforce,” he said.
“That’s why we are funding 4,000 Digital University places specifically in respect of disciplines which will go into the production of nuclear-powered submarines in this country — I think that is going to be the most critical challenge that we face.
“There’s obviously a lot that we need to be doing in terms of developing the physical infrastructure, both at Osborne in terms of allowing ourselves to generate that production line, which will manufacture the submarines, but also in Western Australia and [naval base] HMAS Stirling so that we can begin hosting nuclear-powered submarines, as we are already doing, but prepare ourselves for the submarine rotation, which will happen later in this decade with the United States and the United Kingdom.
” Tim Senden, director of the research school of physics at Australian National University, said in an interview the required workforce probably exists in the country.
“We do have a skilled workforce already, but they just need to some extent — in the early stages — to be re-skilled.
” “From the university perspective, there’s of course a highly skilled nuclear engineering and nuclear physics program,” he said.
” Then there will be the next tier of skilled workers, those who need to have greater specialization in the nuclear industry, Senden said.
“We’ve just done a special course for defense with people from the [Australian Submarine Agency] at quite a high level,” he said.
” And then there will be the nonnuclear trade workers needed to build and maintain facilities, Senden said.
“I think in Australia, maybe in the world, the manual skills, mechanical, electrical fields are probably in demand everywhere irrespective of industry,” he said.
“So, I think that’s going to be more of a global skill shortage than anything.
So, the challenge for Australia will be to mobilize and to get really new people thinking about the trades — the technically skilled and how they can pivot into engineering, project management and bigger project design capabilities.
” Another question is whether workers in Australia will be willing to move to the locations where the submarine maintenance and eventually production will take place, he added.
And while there is cautious optimism that Australia will be able to build its workforce and industrial base to meet the AUKUS submarine milestones, there is perhaps more uncertainty about whether the United States can deliver.

Shahzad Masood Roomi

Shahzad Masood Roomi is founding member and, editor security and geopolitics at GCW. He is IT graduate and has more than 10 years experience of being a  geopolitics and defense affairs analyst. He focuses on IR, geopolitics, strategic studies, maritime security, cybersecurity issues, military aviation, history and geography. His work has published in national and international media outlets.