SSN

is a very different beast.

The kind of flip side within this, and the thing to always keep in mind is that in Australia, we are absolutely focused on AUKUS and on SSN AUKUS and on SSNs generally.

Britain, alongside the United States, actually, that is not number one priority by any stretch of the imagination.

They are desperately eking out the last bits of the Vanguard-class SSBNs, and they are desperate to try and get the Dreadnought-class replacement SSBNs into the water soon, because they've had numerous issues with the Vanguard-class.

Away from maritime matters.

But the, yes, right.

So they were meant to, or they were indicating they were going to announce how many AUKUS SSNs they would acquire by the time the Defence Investment Plan was out.

And obviously that was delayed.

I'm mildly surprised that it has taken this long for focus to be put on the technology.

And it just reinforces my own view in terms of military technology that crude platforms such as Virginia-class SSNs or the very distant future SSN AUKUS, are of diminishing relevance for future conflicts.

In the event of a war with China, the United States already has the capacity to use large, autonomous, uncrewed underwater vessels to powered by artificial intelligence to drop sea mines in and around China's ports.

Similarly, China can do the same thing and probably has autonomous systems able to drop mines off the west coast of the United States and it can certainly already mine places like Guam and Hawaii.

The United States, the long-term goal is for these new generation of submarines to be built by the UK and Australia in a partnership.

And this is called SSN AUKUS.

stands for, just essentially means a nuclear-powered submarine, an attack submarine, if you like, and an SSBN is a boomer, but one that carries the ballistic missiles or the ultimate nuclear deterrent.

We're not buying any of those.

I mean, they really struggle to keep their continuous nuclear deterrent at sea, you know, one SSBN at sea.

Because of the maintenance problems they've had, they've had to have extremely long cruises, you know, over 200 days, that sort of thing.

And none of their SSNs are able to go to sea.

They're all tied up in the dockyard.

It is providing us with a small number of world-class submarines at the expense of everything else because we are acquiring those submarines without increasing our overall defense budget.

So SSNs, attack submarines, are extremely expensive tools designed for very specific tasks.

Every dollar spent on them is a dollar that is not spent on other tools for other tasks.

So I've been heavily criticized for saying this, but those critics have never actually engaged with this argument and the consequences that we've, the very real consequences that we've seen over the past five years since money started flowing into orcas.

That is just Navy and joint capabilities.

I haven't even gotten into Army and Air Force.

So for all that, we will get two deployable SSNs based on US availability rates.

Does that sound like a world-class Navy? Not at all.

I'm going to start with a little bit of breaking news about nuclear-powered submarines because overnight I've seen some alarming media reports coming from the UK.

which are very detailed and very credible, that say that the Labour government under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has delayed ordering new attack class submarines, that's the SSN AUKUS, that's an essential part of AUKUS Pillar 1, until 2028.

I'll repeat, the UK has delayed even ordering, let alone planning, building SSN AUKUS until 2028 and I will add at the earliest.

Now people might be sick and tired of me saying this but obviously our politicians, particularly Defence Minister Richard Marles, are not telling the truth about the state of the UK and US submarine building efforts.

But Big chunks of the media keep parroting these falsely optimistic narratives that simply fly in the face of available evidence.

This insanity has to stop.

That money to the UK is in addition to the $5 billion we are giving to the United States, with $3 billion of that already gone.

And that has had no effect on the rate at which the US is building SSNs.

So, you can see it.

On the other boards, the American SSNs, you don't see it.

So, it looks like it is a single hull.

So, I always say that it's a wrong term to use.

The weapons, the sensors is totally ours.

So, I mean, it's a phenomenal learning.

So, each boat as we go from now and then graduate to the SSNs, it is going to be faster, better.

We'll only improve and with zero dependence on anyone else.

says

our SSNs will be interchangeable with the US.

Yes.

Okay, that is saying, well, those things operating in the South China Sea looking for Chinese SSBNs, they could be Australian too.