How to Save Australia

Aidan Morrison, director of energy research at Australia’s Centre for Independent Studies, takes us to the murky depths of Australia’s security predicament as a country near Maritime Southeast Asia dependent on liquid hydrocarbon imports. We discuss military strategy, the use of nuclear and diesel-electric submarines, and the continent’s precarious dependence on maritime trade and military alliances.

Episode title on podcast platforms: Defense at Depths

Listen to Decouple on:

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
03:33 Australia's military history and strategy
11:32 Australia natural resource weakness: oil
19:35 Australia's energy situation in a hot war
23:30 Defending martime hydrocarbon imports
34:07 AUKUS submarine strategy
44:00 Political consensus for AUKUS
50:55 Facing geostrategic challenges
1:04:53 Liquid hydrocarbon strategy
1:11:03 Power grid vulnerabilities
1:23:40 Closing thoughts

[Discoworx]

As someone else said somewhere else: why would anyone fight for a country where you can't buy a house?

[gregorymalchuk]

Australia: a country on a continent made of coal and uranium, and they still manage to be in an energy crisis.

[hands-on-mc]

Great episode, I have a military background but you were still discussing many things that I hadn't really thought of, very interesting

[UnoMasReactor]

Some people keep saying nuclear subs outclass diesel subs. Yes, I agree, for a long list of reasons. But I think people are missing that Aidan is arguing those advantages are irrelevant for Australia. It's the same reason why Norway uses diesel and doesn't buy nuclear boats. He's arguing it's just not necessary for the protection of their country. Australia doesn't need any offensive capabilities to protect themselves. They need diesel boats that can sit nearly fully shutdown and dead silent, quieter than any Virginia class could ever hope to be, and sit in the mess of islands and torpedo anything that tries to wade through. They're not going to take the fight to China, not happening

They're getting the nuclear boats due to AUKUS. And I think they're mostly going to be used only in coordination with the US/UK for recon and surveillance of unfriendlies and support in the event of war. I don't see Australia spinning up a spy agency and going on the covert offensive of nearby countries, just no.

I agree with Aidan, nuclear subs seem very out of place for the Australian naval fleet. Comes off as just the US/UK using them for their own benefit

[Charlie-UK]

The Number one vulnerability to our power systems in the Western world is Large Power transformers for our Power grids. Not only do we not make them any more. But the lead time for their manufacture numbers in Years, in peacetime. In a conflict situation, it could be even longer. If we have to replace all the manufacturing capacity to re-manufacture them. It could be into decades or more...

[aliendroneservices]

42:17 42:22 Could also tow conventional cargo-ships with uranium-fired tow-ships.

[houseofzedds]

RAAF base at Tindall, near Katherine has 5 or 6 B52 Bombers.
Darwin has 5000 US Marines on 6 monthly rotations.

[wbwarren]

If Australia needs nuclear submarines quickly, I’m sure China will be glad to supply them and will even throw in the screen door option for free!

[lynndonharnell]

Meanwhile the crazies are talking about a nett zero defence force. Presumably because the ev version of Abhams tank make a bigger bang when they get hit.

[gretnatech]

an important but not mentioned aspect of this very interesting chat is the repeated axiom that big ( concentrated ) infrastructure is good in peacetime but not good in times of war.
We are in a time of increasing climate and resource disruption which presents similar challenges to wartime.
Therefore should we not be concentrating on building distributed, resilient infrastructure regardless of a possible future war scenario?

[saltymonke]

You can not beat nuke submarine in any operational environment or spectrum. Even in shallow water. Nuke sub has non-magnetic alloy steel too, even soviet used Titanium to circumvent MAD in shallow water.

Snorkeling time for recharging in coventional submarines are the most dangerous phase in any sub ops. Nuke sub has no problem with it.

Japanese was starved because of submarines

[waywardgeologist]

44:59 so the Aussy’s need a 1000 tankers for their oil supply a year. I expect with the roll out of solar and electric cars that won’t be the case in 10 years.
The money spent on nuclear subs would be better spent on switch cars from ICE to electric.

[williamgrebenik]

Australia could obtain nuclear submarines in a rapid manner. Place Australian officers and enlisted into the US Nuclear navy pipeline for training.
Upon completion of training, integrate them into specific US Fast Attack submarines for training.
The US Navy is planning on decommissioning or has started to decommission 11 Los Angeles class submarines in the current years (now going forward).
Transfer several of the Fast Attack submarines to the Australian navy so they can build up their skill levels (lease them to Australia with return to the USA for final decommissioning).
At the same time, there is already an agreement to build new FA submarines for Australia. While these are being built the Australians get training, experience and operational systems now while waiting on the new fleet submarines.
In addition, while the initial training is going forward, the Australian legal structure can be amended for building the domestic nuclear infrastructure.
It should have started a decade ago, but here we are. This is a very rapid deployment with reduced risk.

[weevil_bob]

The timing of AUKUS and now the push for nuclear power seems a little suspicious, especially since the waste of said nuclear power can be made into weapons grade uranium with breeder reactors.

[thearisen]

Nuclear subs are far more valuable than Aiden presents here. It's not just speed, but of course range but also endurance. A nuclear submarine can stay on station far longer than a DE sub. Really the only limit is crew endurance. They provide offense in a way DE subs just can't while an SSN can fill any role a DE sub would.

Towing a DE sub with a SSN is pure nonsense. Use a surface ship if you really want that but buying more P-8s would be better than buying DE subs in addittion to SSNs.

Maritime Patrol Aircraft like P-8s are already in AUS inventory and very good at hunting subs and can cover any areas a DE sub would.

Aus needs air defense even if you pour concrete because the enemy can find your fuel reserves & ammo depots, then hit them. China has a lot of missiles but not as many as people seem to think. They're going to want to hit US bases in Japan, etc, sooner than they'd go at Australia. Even Guam or Palau would get hit first.

[rattusfinkus]

Manned submarines will be redundant before they are launched. Drones and sensors will make submarines useless

[jimgraham]

Australia will use nuclear energy it's just a question of whether it's sooner or later.

Signing up with Canada for three or four Darlington scale CANDU plants to meet about 25% of projected 2050 demand of 65GW would be a good move.

Provided adequate storage (estimated v, about 2, 000GWhrs) the balance could be reliably met with renewables.

[grumpystiltskin]

It is so idiotic to use a nuclear-powered submarine to try to protect shipping lanes to the Mideast to get oil, . It would be simpler to simply use nuclear power plants to make energy locally, and forget about the Mideast.

[waywardgeologist]

What an illusion. America is looking inward, Australia soon will be on its own. It really come down to numbers, 20 million verse 1.2 billion. Better start learn Mandarin.

[jonmce]

It would seem pretty obvious that Australia needs to get off oil for strategic reasons instead of worrying about convoying a thousand tankers. While it is true larger ships could be overwhelmed they do have a capability that can not be duplicated on small and that is sensors. It is not going to do you much good in having a hundred small ships when you are being hit from a hundred km away. Similarly as is the case of the F35 that larger ship can sense and control a hundred drones 100 km away. Also it seems finally that laser systems are beginning to be useful( there is provision for them in Canada's version of the Type 26, these would be quite capable of handling small aereal munitions. Large munitions typically are physically large and require larger carriers and in themselves cost consderably. For example the missles carried by aircraft when used frequently can cost as much as the aircraft. Although Canada is talking of conventional subs what seems to be in the thinking is that they will someday captain drones. In the age of sail convoys was not the only important reason for ships. Their strategic capability was at least as important.