So when the Royal Australian Navy began to upgrade the naval base at Stirling to host nuclear-powered submarines, divers were sent to relocate 263 of the fish to grids of rebar nearby. Seahorse hotels had to be built first. The bony fish that inhabit Western Australia’s coasts are bad swimmers, spending most of their lives with their tails hooked around bits of rock, or human artefacts like piers and docks.
It is also the first big milestone for AUKUS, a deal announced five years ago by America, Australia and Britain to jointly design and build nuclear-powered submarines. No detail is too small as Australia readies Stirling to host American nuclear-powered attack submarines from next year. That will make it the first American submarine base to be established abroad in half a century, transforming it into a port that will project American power deep into Asia. Its location offers one big advantage over America’s existing bases: it is out of range of all but the most advanced conventional land-based Chinese missiles (unlike one at Guam), but closer to Asian waters than other American submarine bases. The American presence at Stirling is part of the first phase of that, enabling Australian sailors to learn how to sail America’s Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines. They will deploy on the boats and maintain them at Stirling. In a second phase, Australia is to buy from America and operate its own Virginias in the early 2030s—though there are already doubts over whether these will be delivered on schedule or at all. Finally, Australia and Britain will jointly design, build and operate a new class of nuclear-powered submarine, again assuming all goes to plan. The first Australian boat would begin operation in the 2040s. Despite mischief from Chinese spokespeople who imply otherwise, no nuclear weapons are involved, only nuclear power. That would allow Australian subs to range much farther than the country’s current diesel-powered boats without surfacing, giving Australia a more potent deterrent.
One, USS Colorado, arrived at the base on October 28th for a workover by the Australians, and will return for good at the end of 2027.
AUKUS remains controversial. Only afterwards did it become clear to the plotters what an overwhelming endeavour they had undertaken. Creaky shipyards in America and Britain would need a big jab of cash to meet the new production targets. But it is an important signal of Australian commitment. But if the infusion of capital does not jolt the Anglo-American submarine industrial base out of its torpor, there is a significant risk that Australia will end up with fewer boats than promised. That has some Australians, particularly those who have always been sceptical of its alliance with America, opposed to AUKUS. But Australia is getting quite a bit else out of the deal. In order to share with a new partner the closely held technology used to build and operate nuclear reactors under the oceans, America and Britain have both had to revamp a slew of laws and regulations on sharing their most sensitive defence-tech secrets. It has also unlocked related co-operation between the three on other cutting-edge technologies like AI, quantum computing and hypersonic missiles, much of which, officials say, remains classified. But the biggest development thus far has been the decision by America and Australia to base four American submarines at Stirling, an hour’s drive south of Perth. That was not in the original plan for AUKUS, and represents a big shift in the laydown of American forces in a hypothetical conflict with China. But that is a sleight of hand; each American sub will operate from Stirling for one to two years at a time. (A British sub may come to visit now and then, too). Meanwhile, engineers are installing five different types of backup power. Even a vessel with its own nuclear reactor needs auxiliary power, to prevent a meltdown while the reactor is undergoing maintenance. When The Economist visited, secure communication equipment was being installed to let him talk to the Pentagon over classified channels. The island’s cricket oval has been taken over by construction crews; a basketball court has taken its place nearby. Enormous questions persist over AUKUS. The three countries’ plans foresee three to five Australian-flagged Virginias joining the American ones at Stirling in the early 2030s. If they cannot, a future American president might not release any to Australia. If America and Britain cannot get their shipyards in order, they could leave Australia with a nuclear-submarine base but no nuclear-powered submarines of its own. For exclusive coverage of Asian politics, economics and security, sign up to Asia Bulletin , our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.
When that contract was cancelled and AUKUS announced in 2021, it set off a big row. Some of that is coming from Australia, which has already handed over $2.6bn of a total pledged $6.2bn. Already $1.5bn has been spent on getting the base ready for American submarines, with another $4.1bn planned. At one pier, your correspondent observed crews drive concrete piles into the seabed (displacing those seahorses) to allow it to withstand pressure from the 7,000-tonne nuclear-powered sub in bad weather. An American commodore will command the American navy’s newly set-up Submarine Squadron 3 from Stirling. Nearby, housing is going up for some of the 1,200 American sailors under his command, along with a tax-free grocery shop stocking American snacks, open only to American sailors and their families. But to meet the needs of both Australia and America, shipbuilders in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Virginia will have to raise their output from 1.2 boats per year to 2.3 by 2031.
Because australia was under contract at the time to buy French diesel-powered submarines, much of it was negotiated in secret. And there are even bigger questions about the capacity of Britain’s shipyards and nuclear industry, tasked with building 12 of the new AUKUS class of boats due to enter service in the late 2030s, instead of the seven that Britain first planned.
That, says Jennifer Parker of the Lowy Institute, a think-tank in Sydney, “is a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed” to increase output. Those payments may help to explain why a transactional Donald Trump has mostly left the deal alone, last year telling reporters that it was moving “full speed ahead”. The base will remain under Australian control, and officially the foreign submarines will merely “rotate” through it. The American presence at Stirling will be known as Submarine Rotational Force–West (SRF-W)—“Surf West”.
These have brought Australia into the innermost sanctum of American alliances, in a circle previously occupied only by Britain.
