Rapid advances in lithium-metal battery systems, all-electric submarines and autonomous underwater vehicles are reshaping undersea warfare well before Australia is likely to deploy an operational nuclear-powered submarine force.

As the Department of Defence asserts there is no alternative to the lumbering AUKUS program, conventional submarine technology is rapidly evolving. It will constrain what Australia can do with its nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs).

In late March Defence Deputy Secretary Hugh Jeffry said the RAN could maintain a submarine force only through the AUKUS program. The Department would not consider alternatives. Yet such is the pace of technological development in subsea warfare that alternatives will force themselves into Australian defence policymaking well before the deployment of any RAN SSN force.

Seven years ago we drew attention to the implications of emerging light metal battery (LMB) energy systems for submarines. HMAS Attack, first of the then proposed Australian Future Submarine Program, ignored this development and consequently would have been obsolescent before it was delivered in the early-mid 2030s. In 2021 the Morrison government circumvented this issue by initiating the AUKUS agreement to acquire SSNs.

Nuclear power has benefits but is not essential to sustain a lethal undersea warfare capability. China and India, operators of nuclear powered (and nuclear armed) submarines, maintain far greater numbers of conventional vessels. Acquiring SSNs is slow and expensive, their maintenance is complex and even the US Navy cannot meet its mission requirements with its exclusively nuclear-powered fleet. Even with the best of outcomes, Australia will not have an operational SSN........

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