{"id":66989,"date":"2024-05-09T09:40:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T09:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2024\/05\/09\/what-has-the-aukus-alliance-accomplished-in-the-last-year\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T20:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:53:10","slug":"what-has-the-aukus-alliance-accomplished-in-the-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2024\/05\/09\/what-has-the-aukus-alliance-accomplished-in-the-last-year\/","title":{"rendered":"What has the AUKUS alliance accomplished in the last year?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is the second story of a two-part series on how the U.S. submarine force is participating in the trilateral AUKUS alliance. <\/i>Click here<\/i><\/a> to read the first story.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australia won\u2019t take possession of its first nuclear-powered submarine until 2032<\/a>, but Australia and the United States are already training the officers and sailors who will operate that Virginia-class attack boat and the civilians who will maintain it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have eight and a half years to create an Australian [commanding officer] that normally takes 16\u2033 years, said Dan Packer, the director of naval submarine forces for AUKUS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the stakes \u2014 the U.S. selling a nuclear-powered boat to another country for the first time, and Australia making its first foray into using nuclear power \u2014 Packer said it\u2019s important not to rush the officers\u2019 training and development. It must move forward deliberately, with little down time between at-sea assignments, he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australia has eight officers in the inaugural training cohort that began in 2023. Three of those eight will be moved into an accelerated training pipeline, and one will eventually be the first Australian Virginia-class commanding officer \u2014 though the navies don\u2019t yet want to decide who that will be, Packer said during an April 4 embark aboard the Virginia-class sub Delaware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to finish the pipeline this year. And then they\u2019re going to go to their first boat for a two-year tour,\u201d he said. Next, \u201cwe\u2019re going to take them back to Groton, [Connecticut], to go back to department head school, and then they\u2019re going to go right back to another boat. Normally, people do a sea\/shore rotation,\u201d but shore tours have been largely eliminated from the accelerated training pipeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These three officers will then do a two-year tour in Australia, attend the Australian and American command courses \u2014 and then, in 2032, one will be the commanding officer of the submarine that will sail from the U.S. to Australia, lower its American flag, raise an Australian flag and become the lead ship in a sovereign Australian nuclear-powered fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, the Australian submarine force is about 800 people. We\u2019re going to build it to 3,000,\u201d Packer said. \u201cWe understand exactly how many people we need to ingest [into the American training pipeline]. This year, we\u2019re going to ingest 17 officers, 37 nuclear enlisted and 50 non-nuclear enlisted. And we\u2019re going to up that number every year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Packer said the impressive part of this training plan isn\u2019t its quantity. It\u2019s the fact that these sailors and officers will be fully integrated into American attack submarine crews until such time that Australia can stand up its own training pipeline at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point, he said, the U.S. Navy will have 440 Australians on 25 attack submarines, with each crew including two or three Australian officers, seven nuclear enlisted and nine non-nuclear enlisted sailors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is something that has never happened before,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are completely, 100% integrating them into our crew, from a complete and utter perspective. They will do everything that we do\u201d while operating aboard the subs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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President Joe Biden, right, greets British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, center, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the AUKUS meeting in San Diego, Calif., on March 13, 2023. (Chad McNeeley\/U.S. Defense Department)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Short-term wins in a long-term effort<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Training the uniformed personnel is just one piece of a flurry of industrial, legislative and acquisition activity that\u2019s taken place since the AUKUS three-phase plan<\/a> was laid out in March 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaders cautioned patience during a recent panel discussion<\/a>, saying that three countries with separate legislative and budgetary processes were all trying to work in parallel to lay the foundation for a successful trilateral submarine alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very easy to get dragged down to the short term. But these are long-term goals,\u201d U.K. Royal Navy Second Sea Lord Vice Adm. Martin Connell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that the upcoming AUKUS milestones can\u2019t wait until all the money and authorities are in place; \u201cwe\u2019ve got to move sensibly\u201d and accomplish anything that can be done now, while the rest moves through legislative bodies and budgetary processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, in industry, \u201cyou can see components that are going to go into SSN-AUKUS\u201d in the late 2030s, he said, referring to the attack submarine design both the U.K. and Australia will build<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australian Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy added during the panel that his country already committed to spend AU$4.7 billion (U.S. $3.1 billion) to reduce the backlog at Rolls-Royce\u2019s factory, which builds nuclear power plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen people get frustrated, I say there are already parts being produced now for a submarine that won\u2019t be in the water [until] 2042. And I think the budget and the wills of the governments are there; we\u2019ve just got to, in a steady and methodical way, deliver on them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sailors assigned to the Australian Collins-class submarine HMAS Sheean prepare to receive hotel services and supplies during a bilateral training event Sept. 13, 2019, near Fremantle, Australia. (MC2 Jordyn Diomede\/U.S. Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are several more items that were accomplished in the past year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n