The U.K. has awarded three U.K. companies a four billion nine hundred-million-dollar contract to design and construct a nuclear-power attack submarine as part of the country’s AUKUS program with Australia and the U.S.
The U.K. Ministry of Defence said that the contract with BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, and Babcock “represents a significant milestone for both the UK and the trilateral AUKUS program as a whole”.
The new submarines are referred to as SSN-AUKUS. They “will be the largest, most advanced and most powerful attack submarines ever operated” by the Royal Navy. They will “combine world-leading sensors, design and weaponry in one vessel”. The first of the submarines will be delivered into service in the U.K. in the late 2030s. The first Australian one will follow in the early 2040.
The plans for SSN-AUKUS were revealed in March by the leaders of Australia, the U.K. and U.S. They were the result of the three countries ramping up efforts to counter China in the Asia Pacific region.
The nuclear-powered vessels have far greater stealth and range than other similar submarines. They mark the first time that the U.S. has shared nuclear-propulsion technology with a country other than the U.K. They represent a significant upgrade to Australia’s diesel-powered fleet.
Richard Marles is the Australian Defence Minister. He previously described the AUKUS deal as “the biggest step forward in our military capability that we’ve had since the end of World War II”.
Under the AUKUS program, the U.S. also intends to sell Australia up to five of its Virginia-class nuclear powered submarines in the early 2030s. U.S. and U.K. submarines will be deployed to Western Australia as soon as 2027 to help train Australian crews.
Analysts say that the AUKUS program will strengthen deterrence in the face of China’s increasingly assertive actions in the Pacific. This includes actions taken in the South China Sea where it has constructed military bases on disputed outcrops and reefs.
Ashley Townshend is a senior fellow for Indo-Pacific security at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank. In a recent commentary, he said, “As highly stealthy platforms, SSNs’ ability to operate in contested waters, hunt Chinese warships and submarines, control strategic sea lanes and chokepoints, and project power with long-range cruise missiles make them one of the most effective ways to complicate Chinese military planning and give Beijing a reason to take pause before using force.”
Townsend added that “The fact that US, UK, and, in time, Australian SSNs will be operating as a combined force—with Aussies also embedded on American and British subs—raises the specter of horizontal escalation by forcing Beijing to consider the prospect that military action against any SSN, or the submarine base itself, could trigger the involvement of all three nations.”
China has condemned AUKUS as an illegal act of nuclear proliferation. The Chinese foreign ministry has accused Australia, the U.K., and US of travelling “further down the wrong and dangerous path for their own geopolitical self-interest”. They say that the AUKUS pact arises from a “Cold War mentality which will only motivate an arms race, damage the international nuclear proliferation regime, and harm regional stability and peace”.