How Australia will use its new nuclear-powered submarines

U.S. and U.K. to help Australia develop new defense technologies, including nuclear-powered submarines.

Australia currently operates six Collins-class submarines, commissioned between 1996 and 2003, powered by diesel engines and batteries.

The submarines at the center of the recent Australia-U.K.-U.S. security pact still are decades from delivery, but Australia already has an idea of where they will be operating. 1945 reports. Continue reading original article

The AUKUS pact announced in September is meant to deepen cooperation on defense technologies — the highest-profile of which are eight nuclear-powered submarines that the U.S. and the U.K. will help Australia develop.

Officials have stressed that the pact is not directed at a specific country, but the Australia ambassador to the U.S., Arthur Sinodinos, emphasized this week that it is in response to changes in regional security, which are largely been driven by China.

“The important thing is their lethality, their range, the number of things they can do,” Sinodinos said of the subs. “It’s part of a defense philosophy that we want to be able to — in [these] deteriorating strategic circumstances — be able to project our power further up, rather than taking an approach that all our defense has to be a defense of the mainland.”

Source: Military & Aerospace Electronics