Australia still needs nuclear-powered submarines for long-range sea denial, but the current AUKUS pathway is too slow and risky, making a locally built conventional fleet essential to avoid a dangerous capability gap.

Australia’s prosperity and security are intrinsically linked to our maritime environment. As regional navies grow, maintaining the ability to operate freely and protect national interests requires capabilities that provide the government with flexible, independent options. Within an effective national defence posture, submarines have one primary role: they are potent and effective weapons of attack, creating profound uncertainty and structural asymmetry for an adversary.

To be truly effective, Australia’s submarines must have the long range and endurance required for forward sea denial – operating at the places where an adversary will most certainly be found, such as their home ports, training areas, and high-payoff trade routes. Restricting operations to our immediate geographic approaches hands the initiative to an opponent and constitutes a fundamental failure of forward sea denial.

Sensor density and the reality of transparent oceans

Predictions of entirely transparent oceans overstate the situation. While sensor density and ocean surveillance compilation are improving, the ocean remains a complex, non-linear medium that naturally masks acoustic and non-acoustic signatures. Sustaining persistent, wide-area surveillance over vast regions like the South China Sea presents an immense challenge that exceeds the organic capacity of predicted regional assets.

The execution of high-value forward operations within these contested environments will be structurally enhanced by deploying organic unmanned systems from the mother submarine. Utilising the manned platform as a forward command node that deploys autonomous off-board drones allows for deep stand-off detection, extended sensor coverage, and remote weapon placement. This deployment keeps the mother platform insulated from localised risks while........

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