I’m afraid that I have to disagree with Sonnie Hopkins on the subject of nuclear submarines (“The time is right for nuclear submarines”, CCN 385).
There is a fundamental difference between a diesel-powered and a nuclear-powered submarine, and that is that one is a defensive weapon and the other is an attack weapon.
By abandoning our deal with France and switching to the USA, we have announced a dramatic change in our military posture vis-a-vis China which isn’t necessarily to our advantage.
This would be all very well if the new posture were credible, but it is, in reality, completely unsustainable.
Even assuming that the submarine deal ever comes to anything while submarines are still a viable weapon, the RAN will remain a mouse in a confrontation of elephants.
As Mr. Hopkins says, “our subs could not annihilate another country”, so there is no mutually assured destruction to act as a deterrent to aggression.
In fact, the level of force that the subs will represent is little more than a joke, in international terms.
It would be interesting to conjecture just how these subs will “serve as a disincentive to attack”, if we are ever subjected to a “bombardment from guided missiles”, as he puts it.
Just how will this disincentive work, given the puny force that can be deployed and the type of weapons that will be available to them?
I can’t imagine that the Chinese are shaking in their boots at the thought of a strike from us, while, at the same time, we are risking irreparable damage to the trade relations on which we are totally dependent.
As for the idea that we are not weakening our sovereign status by involving ourselves in the deal, this is naivete of the worst kind.
The submarines are worthless except as an element of US naval strategy in the Pacific, so we must integrate our operations with those of the USA, like it or not.
It is true that we could, in theory, withhold participation in an action (although how easy that would be in practice is hard to say), but, if we were to co-operate in an action, it would have to be under American command, as no other tactical option is conceivable.
As I have said before, the submarines are a token by which we gain a seat at the international table, but it would be foolish to imagine that they make us a serious independent player … and all this at a cost that it is not clear we can afford.
Email, Apr 10
Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy