Australia cancelled 12 French submarines. It started again with nuclear boats.

Australia did not lose a submarine because a shipyard failed to launch one. It cancelled a programme before the first boat existed, then chose an alliance path that required Australia to build a different kind of fleet.

On 16 September 2021, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States announced AUKUS. The first initiative was for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarine technology from the two partners. The joint defence statement said the three countries would identify a pathway to deliver at least eight nuclear-powered submarines. It also said Australia would no longer proceed with the Attack-class conventional submarine programme with France’s Naval Group.

That was a procurement cancellation and an alliance decision at the same time. The Attack-class programme had been selected in 2016 and the contract with Naval Group was signed in February 2019, 16 months later than planned. The Reuters report used for this case says Australian officials had raised concerns about delay, cost and suitability for years. A 2020 Auditor-General report had recorded a delayed pre-design review because work from Naval Group did not meet Defence’s requirements, including incomplete design detail and 63 outstanding studies.

The programme was therefore not a clean success interrupted by one surprise announcement. Reuters reported that an independent oversight board led by former US Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter had advised Australia in September 2018 to examine alternatives and questioned whether the project was in the national interest. In September 2019, with A$446 million already spent in France, Australia’s Defence Department told the Auditor-General it had examined extending the life of the Collins-class fleet and the time that might provide to develop a new acquisition strategy.

Those facts complicate the politics without changing the decision. France said Canberra had blindsided it. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called the cancellation “a stab in the back”. Australia’s former prime minister Scott Morrison said the decision was not the result of difficulties with the Future Submarine Program or Naval Group, while Naval Group said it knew public discussion had been supportive of the programme. The accounts are not identical, and the article should not choose one as an undisputed motive.

The official Australian statement gave a different strategic explanation. It said accelerating changes in regional security had made conventional submarines unsuitable for Australia’s operational needs in the decades ahead. AUKUS was intended to give Australia access to nuclear propulsion, with its greater speed, endurance and submerged persistence. Those are the government’s reasons for the policy choice. They do not erase the contractual problems reported before the announcement.

Nor did AUKUS produce a ready replacement on 16 September 2021. The statement described an 18-month examination of nuclear stewardship, requirements and the pathway to the submarines. It said Australia would establish a task force and build the boats in South Australia. The new route required technology transfer, training, industrial capacity, nuclear regulation and a three-country political agreement. It was a programme to be created, not a fleet waiting in a warehouse.