NEWTOWN, Conn. - As Australian Defense Minister David Johnston reviews options for the Royal Australian Navy's (RAN's) so-called Future Submarines that will serve as a replacement for the current Collins-class fleet the scope, cost and end-user capability derived from the program are serving as his signposts. Upon taking office last fall the center-right Liberal-National Coalition government was handed a defense brief that included the RAN's $30-40 billion "Sea 1000" Future Submarine Project outlined in the 2009 Defense White Paper crafted by the center-left government of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. This is the political hot potato for which Johnston must find a feasible solution that will keep all parties - politicians, defense officials and industrial elements - happy.
The 2009 decision by the Rudd government called for doubling Australia's current submarine fleet from six Collins-class submarines to 12 as a means of countering the rising oceanic threat presented by China's naval expansion. That plan was not only ambitious in cost and size - doubling the standing submarine fleet by 2030-2040 when the Collins subs were withdrawn from service - but presented an altogether new challenge: these larger, more capable submarines must be wholly owned by Australia. Meaning that not only would production be conducted in-country, but their design would be as well.
As something the country has never undertaken before (the Collins-class submarines were built in Adelaide, but were based on a design fashioned by Sweden's Kockums for Type 471 submarines) this presented an altogether monumental task. While the Labor government's Defense Minister Stephen Smith provided AUD214 million ($201 million) towards the study of future submarine options, Johnston was unimpressed with its design concepts and realized that Australia lacked the necessary design team and know-how involved with such a from-the-ground-up project. Instead the defense minister opted to mirror the method involved in the Collins-class submarine project: build the new boats in Australia, but using design concepts fashioned by a foreign submarine company.
With Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, reaching an agreement on April 7 to launch talks on a defense equipment and technology cooperation framework the submarine issue has once again leapt to the forefront. Australia has not hid its interest in the drivetrain utilized in Japan's 4,200-ton Soryu-class conventional submarines. While Japan is reluctant to impart such sensitive technology to another party it did agree to begin a bilateral defense technology project with Australia involving joint research into marine hydrodynamics.
Meanwhile two other countries are angling to secure a slice of the Australian submarine project pie: Germany and Sweden. Germany's naval giant, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) is currently involved in a tug-of-war with Sweden over the latter's desire to recover the sovereign submarine building capability it lost when Kockums was sold off to TKMS in 2005.
Concerned that TKMS had only bought the company as a means of eliminating a competitor from the market and frustrated by Kockums' treatment at the hand of its German owners, Sweden awarded Saab - which has no submarine building capabilities - with a study on its future submarines (the initial contract for Sweden's A26 submarine project study had been awarded to Kockums in 2010). The tangle between TKMS and the Swedish government seems to finally be drawing to a close with a Memorandum of Understanding concerning the sale of TKMS' submarine building operations in Sweden signed between TKMS and Saab on April 14.
The TKMS-Sweden spat is important for Australia as TKMS and Saab are likely to be the two leading contenders to provide the design for the RAN Sea 1000 Future Submarine.
But Johnston has more than just a design team to be concerned about.
The Collins-class submarine project proved a troublesome one for Australia, with the submarines proving trouble-prone and with poor rates of availability. A repeat performance - an even more expensive one - is obviously not in Australia's interest. Thus, in Johnston's mind, performance and availability trump all else.
The defense minister has squashed any speculation about the possibility of an off-the-shelf purchase, reiterating that the most likely options are an Evolved Collins-class design or a completely new design fit to Australian needs and the country's climatic and strategic environment. But with Sweden still owning the intellectual property rights for the Collins-class submarines the possibility of an Evolved Collins-class submarine diminishes.
Another question - exactly how many submarines will be purchased - has been de-emphasized by Johnston. The number is less important than availability - and cost. The final hurdle may prove the toughest for Johnston: pitching the case for a new class of submarines to a spending-conscious Treasury.
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