The release of the independent AUKUS Public Inquiry Report marks a decisive moment in Australia’s defence debate. It is now time for a Plan B, says Peter Briggs.

The report of the public inquiry into AUKUS, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception did something Parliament failed to do: it gave the nation a transparent, evidence-based sanity check on a $368 billion defence commitment negotiated in secret.

Predictably, defenders of the status quo have rushed to conflate criticism of the AUKUS acquisition plan with anti-alliance ideology or anti-nuclear sentiment. This is a distraction. The fundamental takeaway from the inquiry is that Australia genuinely needs a modern, highly capable nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) force to provide options for a future government dealing with coercion, protect its maritime approaches and maintain an effective undersea deterrent.

The real breakdown in national policy is not whether Australia needs SSNs, but the dangerous insistence that AUKUS Pillar 1 is the only way to get them.

The anatomy of an undeliverable plan

AUKUS Pillar 1 does not fail on strategic intent; it fails on engineering, industrial and workforce realities.

As structured, the plan locks Australia into a two-decade capability chasm throughout the 2030s and 2040s. It relies on acquiring second-hand Virginia-class hulls from a US Navy that is already severely short of attack submarines, backed by overstretched American shipyards producing well below their required cadence. It then transitions the Royal Australian Navy........

© Pearls and Irritations