Advertising gimmicks: Australia's nuclear-powered submarines

The AUKUS alliance continues Australia's idiosyncratically disturbed approach to submarine policy. The mutilated French design was a monster without teeth: a nuclear blueprint with its nuclear propulsion removed in favour of diesel power. The AUKUS proposal is not much better, being yet another mangle that contemplates the expenditure of AU$116 billion on a fleet of eight submarines. In whatever form it takes – and the question is serious enough – the submarine in question will have nuclear propulsion without nuclear weapons, a situation manifestly absurd and unlikely to last long.

The balance sheet of this enterprise is a poor one, and risks becoming more wretched. Tangibly, AUKUS has shown Australia diplomacy to be subservient and shoddy, alienating its European Indo-Pacific ally while also being laughed at by the United States. (President Joe Biden showed much contrition to Emmanuel Macron by suggesting, disingenuously, that the Australians should have told France earlier.)

Even if these plans firm up in time for electoral exploitation, it will not clarify when these beasts of the sea will actually emerge from the cocoon of the imagination. In decades, the armchair strategists and naval cocktail circuit will be feasting over other prototypes and ways to burn money from the public purse. The Australian nuclear-powered submarine will be a comical relic, the butt of many a joke.