Australia 'mugged by reality' on Aukus deal as US set to halve submarine build | Hacker News Reader

Australia 'mugged by reality' on Aukus deal as US set to halve submarine build

theguardian.com

23 pointsapt-get21 comments

Incidentally, Scott Morrison, the former PM who scuttled the French deal in favour of AUKUS - which costs the Australian tax payer 380 billion - is now on the board of at least one US defence think tank and I think at least another military manufacturer.

It’s Democracy at it’s finest.

I think it's just "humanity" and self interest, not sure any given government form is immune to such things.

Historically when I see folks rise up to stop such things, they just mean get their own piece of the pie, or all of it. Humanity is very good at "problem solved, because it is ok when i do it".

This was a lot worse in the Soviet Union. The level of inequality there is hard to comprehend, where your personal essentials such as freedom to move or being able to defend yourself from violence highly depended on your "wealth", that is your standing in the "nomenklatura". Not to even mention actual wealth, like having a car or real estate.

And it's not like it wasn't exactly the same under monarchy. Even with a straight arrow like Guizot (the straightest arrow of any French government ever probably) as a prime minister, corruption seep deep once people in power can stay in power for as long as they wish.

'Australia pays $830m penalty for ditching non-nuclear French submarines'

Lack of integrity kills everything. This is one "resource" you start with, that you can only lose. There is no gain. Some people lost it all before they can understand what integrity is.

I have to say, knowing a bit more than is public about the deal the Australians had in the first place with the French and that they chose to just throw away, that I'm left laughing out loud.

> that they chose to just throw away

I believe the tech transfers are still happening. That’s massive. American nuclear submarine technology is in a class of its own.

My understanding is that one of the big problems with the French design was that their nuclear reactors used less enriched uranium and need to be be refuelled several times before the EOL of the submarine. This is not a problem for the French since they have their own nuclear industry and easy access the necessary enriched uranium. However getting access to this fuel would have been a big problem for Australia. The US design however is designed to never need refuelling during the lifetime of the submarine and as such removes a significant hurdle for maintenance.

Weren’t the French selling the RAN diesel-electrics?

This is corruption of the highest level. This is what the western leaders are doing with our carbon budget and the last few decades of high-energy society.

> the Pentagon budget draft request includes construction of just one Virginia-class nuclear submarine for 2025

We’re selling them, right? Presumably not at a loss?

Why does the Congress need to appropriate for a boat Canberra is buying?

You can't build and sell a warship (or submarine in this case) without congressional approval in the US

Congress can approve without appropriating.

The issue is industrial capacity. Right now the US has enough industrial capacity to deliver maybe 2 submarines a year, and that needs to scale a lot. But that requires the companies involved to build more dockyards, train more workers (this is fairly specialized stuff), etc. Thats a big upfront cost for those companies, and they aren’t entirely sure such investments would pay off, and things like the above budget request underline that hesitancy. Personally I think this is why we need government intervention, more than just throwing money at them and hoping they invest it in industrial capacity.

> that requires the companies involved to build more dockyards, train more workers (this is fairly specialized stuff), etc.

I suppose I’m curious for the specific fixed costs General Dynamics is concerned about and why they can’t bake that into the price of the second boat.

Many of the costs aren’t actually fixed. There’s all those extra workers you’ll need to pay, and training will have to be ongoing to account for turnover. Oh, and this is fairly specialized work, meaning if someone decides to specialize in it they may not have a ton of job opportunities outside of Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls. To even get people to apply you’ll need to increase wages. Even the fixed costs like building some new dry docks and factories could be in the billions. Oh, and you can’t forget everything here has multi-year lead times. Virginia class submarines take 5+ years to build. There are 9 under construction right now per Wikipedia.

Laughs in French.

I'm strongly reminded of the diplomacy saying "Don't go into a well with an American rope".

Yeah and the whole reason China is a military threat is because McArthur got shot down by Truman and military tech is constantly stolen from the U.S.

Australia has to design and build it's own weapons to realistically have it's own political will.

We've seen it time and time again. People like Australia shirtless and plunderable.

You may have some points but McArthur wanted to turn Korea into a sea of irradiated isotopes. I think it's fair he was turned down.

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