are in the early stages of building their own new classes of nuclear-powered submarines, and adding a third class to shipyards already struggling to find new workers and keep strained supply chains moving is no easy feat. He said he’s confident the work will get done, though he also pointed out that both the U.S. Joe Courtney, top Democrat on House Armed Services’ Seapower subcommittee, adding it will be “daunting.” “How that organized is going to be the question of the day,” said Connecticut Rep. Questions also linger over how quickly Washington and London can revamp those policies. and Australia, we are not going to get it right for any other country in the world,” said Dak Hardwick, vice president of International Affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group. “If we cannot get this right with the U.K. has not previously exported or shared such technology, and any deal requires a deep rethinking of export rules, and requiring changes in regulations. also apply to other parts of the larger AUKUS deal, which include sharing sensitive technologies for hypersonic missiles, cyber and artificial intelligence. The issues swirling around the shipyards in the U.S. and Australia might still be in the works. to build the new Virginia submarines in the 2030s, suggesting that more deals between the U.S. One congressional staffer questioned whether Australian funding alone would be enough to add to facilities in the U.S. The companies also have the first of 12 planned Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines soon moving down their production lines, a logjam that was already stoking worries about industrial capacity and raising serious questions over how they can possibly add more Australia-bound Virginia subs to their operations. companies that manufacture the submarines, General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries, are unable to meet the Navy’s goal of producing two submarines a year, and instead build about one and a half boats annually.īloomberg first reported the hybrid U.K.-Australia submarine aspect of the AUKUS project, while Reuters originally reported the outlines of the Virginia submarine deal. export control system is a relic of the Cold War” and Washington needs to move faster and more efficiently in greenlighting critical nuclear technologies in a reasonable time frame.īuilding the Virginia-class submarines will be another issue. “Cost is a big issue,” added one diplomat familiar with the planning, saying that among the allied governments there is a recognition that “the U.S. If there’s political commitment they’ll find the money, but it isn’t cheap, they’re going to get sticker shock” at the final sail-away cost of a nuclear-powered submarine. The commitment and funding have to remain intact “at least until the first steel is cut on a new design, so you’re talking 10 years, and the final lever is how much Australia is going to remain wedded to this. Keeping the AUKUS effort sailing over the coming decades will “require significant political leadership, and that unity is a big assumption” to make, said Brent Sadler, retired Navy submarine officer who is now at the Heritage Foundation think tank. While the three leaders are putting their imprint on the burgeoning deal in a conspicuously public way, the decades-long scope of the project means that the trio will be long out of office by the time the submarines are ready to begin construction. And the countries need to tackle all of this as Beijing churns out ships and submarines at rates the allies - even working together - are unable to match. None of it will be easy, however, and the sun-splashed promises of allied unity from the three leaders who are gathering Monday belie the extraordinarily complex changes needed in export control rules and growing concerns that overstretched U.S. However all of the details shake out in the end, the result will be a historic sharing of ultra-sensitive technology that could bulk up the three nations’ navies in Beijing’s backyard. Those hulls would not come into service until at least the 2040s with some being delivered well into the 2050s. Australia will also fund the construction of joint U.K.-Australia nuclear-powered submarines based on the British Astute-class boats. Then, Canberra will purchase at least three U.S.-made Virginia-class attack subs in the 2030s. Most immediately, Australia is expected to serve as a forward base for a small number of U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |