While the concerns expressed with how Australia handled itself in the announcement of AUKUS are cogent, I think the lense that is focused purely on international relations with China and not the (de)merits DCNS/Naval Group's contract do a disservice to Australian decision makers.
As far back as 2009, Australia had already decided on advanced submarine force for extended operations in the Pacific and potential confrontation with China in its defense White Papers. This is what the new submarine program was for. So AUKUS is not Australia changing tracks with regards to the intended use of these submarines. The other overlooked factor, which was non negotiable, is that Australia wanted to secure sovereign capability by building its own submarines. The Australian Navy has suffered tremendously due to having procured foreign submarines rather than ones produced domestically.
DCNS cheated - all technically above the letter of the law of course - the procurement process. Specifically, it used its political saavy to hire Australian insiders who'd written the requirements of the Australian submarine procurement program as lobbyists. In doing so, DCNS was able to shoulder aside the proven, affordable, and highly sophisticated submarine tenders from Germany and Japan with the promise of a design for which it had no organic technological know-how.
DCNS(Naval Group in Australia) builds the nuclear Barracuda submarine for France. It has not produced any diesel-electric Submarines in a very long time, certainly not advanced conventionally powered submarines that are competitive on their merits to German and Japanese submarines. Its tender was to tear the nuclear propulsion out of the Barracuda and replace it with advanced AIP and battery technologies that would match those offered by Japanese and German industries. It did not even have a clean-sheet hull finished hull design to offer, again, only the promise of one. The only reason this bid could succeed was, again, outrageous - but technically legal - cheating.
Due to the writing of the Australian program, Australia is now contractually locked in with DCNS.
This has been a nightmare for Australia. Six years later and the program has overrun its budget by almost 2x the original projection, from 50 billion to 90 billion. Of that the Australian taxpayer has already paid 4 billion.
All this...and no submarine design.
I have to repeat, DCNS/Naval Group after six years could not even provide a finished blueprint!
Worse still, Naval Group's last statement to the Australian government was that the earliest it could deliver the first submarine - if it were built entirely in France - is mid-2030. This is when the program was supposed to wrapping up its production run in Australia according to contract! Even if Australia were to accept the first submarines in the late 2030s, DCNS/Naval Group's projection of the work done on them in Australia was slipping from 90% to below 50%.
And when Australia started demanding answers and applying financial penalties towards DCNS/Naval Group?
DCNS/Naval Group's response was to SLOW DOWN work on the project.
In all this, the French government has displayed not a single drop of interest in Australia's plight. While concerns about Australia's multilateralism are valid, doesn't Australia deserve an apology and some explanation from the French government for why their contractors can basically scam the Australian taxpayer like this?
While the concerns expressed with how Australia handled itself in the announcement of AUKUS are cogent, I think the lense that is focused purely on international relations with China and not the (de)merits DCNS/Naval Group's contract do a disservice to Australian decision makers.
As far back as 2009, Australia had already decided on advanced submarine force for extended operations in the Pacific and potential confrontation with China in its defense White Papers. This is what the new submarine program was for. So AUKUS is not Australia changing tracks with regards to the intended use of these submarines. The other overlooked factor, which was non negotiable, is that Australia wanted to secure sovereign capability by building its own submarines. The Australian Navy has suffered tremendously due to having procured foreign submarines rather than ones produced domestically.
DCNS cheated - all technically above the letter of the law of course - the procurement process. Specifically, it used its political saavy to hire Australian insiders who'd written the requirements of the Australian submarine procurement program as lobbyists. In doing so, DCNS was able to shoulder aside the proven, affordable, and highly sophisticated submarine tenders from Germany and Japan with the promise of a design for which it had no organic technological know-how.
DCNS(Naval Group in Australia) builds the nuclear Barracuda submarine for France. It has not produced any diesel-electric Submarines in a very long time, certainly not advanced conventionally powered submarines that are competitive on their merits to German and Japanese submarines. Its tender was to tear the nuclear propulsion out of the Barracuda and replace it with advanced AIP and battery technologies that would match those offered by Japanese and German industries. It did not even have a clean-sheet hull finished hull design to offer, again, only the promise of one. The only reason this bid could succeed was, again, outrageous - but technically legal - cheating.
Due to the writing of the Australian program, Australia is now contractually locked in with DCNS.
This has been a nightmare for Australia. Six years later and the program has overrun its budget by almost 2x the original projection, from 50 billion to 90 billion. Of that the Australian taxpayer has already paid 4 billion.
All this...and no submarine design.
I have to repeat, DCNS/Naval Group after six years could not even provide a finished blueprint!
Worse still, Naval Group's last statement to the Australian government was that the earliest it could deliver the first submarine - if it were built entirely in France - is mid-2030. This is when the program was supposed to wrapping up its production run in Australia according to contract! Even if Australia were to accept the first submarines in the late 2030s, DCNS/Naval Group's projection of the work done on them in Australia was slipping from 90% to below 50%.
And when Australia started demanding answers and applying financial penalties towards DCNS/Naval Group?
DCNS/Naval Group's response was to SLOW DOWN work on the project.
In all this, the French government has displayed not a single drop of interest in Australia's plight. While concerns about Australia's multilateralism are valid, doesn't Australia deserve an apology and some explanation from the French government for why their contractors can basically scam the Australian taxpayer like this?