Finance
To counter China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region, leaders from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia have revealed new details of their plan to build a fleet of next-generation nuclear-powered submarines.
According to the BBC, under the AUKUS agreement announced on Monday, Australia will first receive at least three nuclear-powered submarines from the US.
Meanwhile, members of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) will be embedded at submarine bases in the United States and the United Kingdom beginning this year to learn how to operate the submarines.
The United States and the United Kingdom will base a small number of nuclear submarines at a RAN base in Perth, Western Australia, beginning in 2027, before Australia purchases three American Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s, with options to purchase two more.
Following that, the plan is to design and build an entirely new nuclear-powered submarine called SSN-AUKUS for the UK and Australian navies.
This attack ship will be built in the United Kingdom and Australia to a British design, but will incorporate technology from all three countries.
The interim and future submarines will provide Australia with submarines that can travel further and faster than its current fleet, as well as cruise missiles that can strike targets on land and at sea.
Despite Chinese protests, the submarines will not carry nuclear weapons, and US, Australian, and British officials have insisted that the plans are compliant with international non-proliferation rules.
Speaking to reporters at the Point Loma Naval Base in San Diego, he was flanked by the Prime Ministers of Australia and the UK, Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak, respectively, US President Joe Biden called AUKUS a “powerful entity”.
“Forging this new partnership, we’re showing again how democracies can deliver our own security and prosperity… not just for us but for the entire world.
“Today, as we stand at the inflection point in history, where the hard work of enhancing deterrence and promoting stability is going to affect the prospects of peace for decades to come, the US can ask for no better partners in the Indo-Pacific, where so much of our shared future will be written,” CNN quoted Biden as saying.
The President stressed that the US has “safeguarded stability in Indo-Pacific for decades, to the enormous benefits of nations throughout the region from ASEAN to Pacific Islanders to the People’s Republic of China”.
“In fact, our leadership in the Pacific has been the benefit to the entire world. We’ve kept the sea lanes and skies open and navigable for all. We’ve upheld basic rules of the road.”
On his part, Sunak directly named China as a cause for concern, CNN reported.
“China’s growing assertiveness, the destabilizing behaviour of Iran and North Korea all threaten to create a world defined by danger, disorder and division.
“Faced with this new reality, it is more important than ever, that we strengthen the resilience of our own countries,” he added.
Meanwhile, Albanese said the submarine plan would create thousands of new jobs and marked the “biggest single investment in Australia’s defence capability in all of its history”.
“This will be an Australian sovereign capability, commanded by the royal Australian navy and sustained by Australian workers in Australian shipyards with construction to begin this decade,” the BBC quoted the Prime Minister as saying.
He also stated that the agreement is the first in 65 years and only the second time in history that the United States has shared nuclear propulsion technology.
Source:OCN
