Election 2016: Prepare for nuclear subs, fight in Iraq, think tank says
In April the decision was made to award the $50 billion contract for Australia’s next submarine fleet to France. DCNS Group
Australia should prepare for nuclear submarines and commit troops to directly fight Islamic State in Iraq, the country’s leading strategic think tank has advised the next government.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute says Australia faces the certainty of a terrorist attack in the next term of government as a weakened IS changes tactics, and an uneasy tension between reducing economic risks, by retiring debt, and reducing strategic risk by spending more on defence.
The think tank argues Australia should decide soon on moving to nuclear-powered submarines, and quotes what it describes as a “somewhat cryptic” remark in the recently released Defence white paper which suggests that this is what the Defence establishment wants.
“After the 2016 election, the Australian government should start to scope out what steps might sensibly be taken to create a realistic option for nuclear propulsion at the end of the 2020s,” the paper says.
The spectre of nuclear-powered submarines comes after the April decision to award the $50 billion contract for Australia’s next submarine fleet to France – which will have to modify its nuclear-powered Barracuda submarine to conventional power to fill the contract.
Push is on
There was speculation in the wake of the contract announcement that the government made the decision with future nuclear power in mind. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the idea “did not form any part of the tender decision”.
However, ASPI is now leading a push for the nuclear switch to happen, arguing that “nuclear propulsion (which essentially gives submarines unlimited range) has been off the agenda for political reasons”.
“That’s unfortunate, because the capabilities required for our future submarine would in many respects be better performed by nuclear-powered boats.”
ASPI executive director Peter Jennings says it has been “an article of faith since the 2009 Defence white paper that Australia’s next submarine will be conventionally powered”.
The recent South Australian Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle suggests community thinking on nuclear power is changing, he says, andnotes the expert panel advising the government on the Defence white paper “found there was a strong public desire to understand the details of how nuclear propulsion might serve Australian interests”.
“The panel recommended that the government ‘identify an opportunity to explain the “pros and cons” of nuclear propulsion for submarines’,” he says.
Sustained effort needed
Mr Jennings notes a “somewhat cryptic remark” in the white paper that “as part of the rolling acquisition program, a review based on strategic circumstances at the time, and developments in submarine technology, will be conducted in the late 2020s to consider whether the configuration of the submarines remains suitable or whether consideration of other specifications should commence”.
Mr Jennings says “this could be hinting that nuclear propulsion may be considered a decade or more from now”.
However, “the wider Defence establishment and Australia’s industry and infrastructure are simply not at the right level of capability to crew, operate and support nuclear-propelled submarines”.
Mr Jennings says a sustained effort will be needed “to build a cadre of trained nuclear technicians, industry specialists and Navy crew able to work with nuclear propulsion systems”.
At the political level “an open discussion with the Australian people” needs to take place, possibly led “by an expert panel commissioned to evaluate necessary steps to position for a nuclear propulsion option.”
While aware of the growing disputes in the East China and South China seas, ASPI says Defence Force contributions in Iraq and Syria are likely to be the ADF’s most significant operational commitments for the next few years at least.
Defeating IS
The paper says IS has been weakened in the past year but argues this reinforces the need to step up Australian involvement in defeating them militarily in the Middle East as there are already signs that the defeats there are leading to a change of tactics which means a heightened terror risk at home.
Options that should be considered include allowing the current training contingent to accompany their Iraqi trainees into combat operations; deploying an element of Australian special forces with their US counterparts to undertake shared operations; and/or deploying additional personnel and air force assets that can be used to assist in targeting for the air campaign.
