Part 1 of this series examined how the RAN could contribute to Australia’s new strategy of deterrence by denial as expressed through the 2023 defence strategic review (DSR). Part 2 analysed the RAN’s primary tasks to execute that strategy. This final post addresses the primary force structure the RAN needs to accomplish those tasks.

Deciding on the navy’s force structure is largely a process of common sense in maximising the impact of current and foreseen technologies and techniques within the available budget. But first must come the hard intellectual effort of deciding what’s to be achieved and why, how it can be done and with what. Long, hard-earned experience has revealed some useful rules to guide the common sense.

The fewer classes of ships and submarines and onboard weapons and systems the RAN possesses, the simpler and more cost-effective it will be to manage construction and lifecycle costs. Preparing and sustaining their crews will benefit too.

Building in batches, retrofitting upgrades only where relevant and sensible, and de-risking future classes by adopting an evolutionary process should be normal. Vessels should start with margins appropriate for a lifecycle involving their change and growth. Nurturing and aligning the supply chain are fundamental to minimising the challenge. The US approach to its Arleigh Burke–class destroyer illustrates the process.

For Australia, geography is the defining factor for designing its force. Almost everywhere the RAN will operate is a long way from its bases. Vessels must cover great distances economically at a reasonable speed and with sufficient volume to carry enough consumable items, including ammunition, to remain on operations for as long as possible. Artificially small crews will not suffice. Support ships are an essential part of high-endurance forces.

Being able to hit sooner, harder and further away than the other side matters. Naval combat involves attrition, and it’s best if the adversary suffers the most. Our primary platforms and systems and their crews are valuable, so they also must be as defensible and survivable as possible.

The DSR warns that the future Australian Defence Force must address a ‘current bias towards platforms’ and says a platform that can’t be crewed or that doesn’t have weapons to fire at a range to achieve the desired operational or strategic effect won’t serve us well in the current strategic environment. The navy needs multi-role platforms that are as self-contained as possible, incorporating advanced sensors, communications and other systems for networked warfare and delivering lethal effects in all domains, against the right target, and as part of an integrated force. They can also be controlling nodes for future large and small unmanned vessels as they become more practicable in the future.

Nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) with extensive range, endurance and high speed are a self-evident solution for Australia, but their real costs will be eye-watering. Submarines are offensive weapons and very hard and expensive to counter. They will create real challenges for an adversary if present in the numbers needed.

Submarines aren’t the only capability contributing to deterrence, and it remains to be seen if other capabilities have to be given up to pay for them. Current defence budgetary planning seems deficient in that respect. The DSR, for instance, suggests a trade-off with surface combatants, but it’s not clear what that trade-off might be.

Affecting all these considerations are the questions of what rates of effort are to be achieved, for how long, and against which threat. These factors are fundamental to the size of the force and its capabilities, not to mention its cost. The DSR is silent on this aspect, but it notes that the ADF needs to increase its preparedness for operations, which brings additional cost. Options such as multi-crewing are possible to keep ships and submarines in a distant area, if difficult to manage in practice, but eventually maintenance will require a return to home ports. Preparing to deploy and reconstituting ships on return require additional resources to keep a unit on station.

A rule of thumb of three to one is sometimes quoted, which should be interpreted as being a baseline for the conduct of hostilities because it misses the peacetime requirement for advanced training support, system updates and upgrades, and extended maintenance where ships and submarines are out of service for a year or more. A better ratio in peacetime would be five or six to one, which will permit efficient and sustainable management of the force and its workforce and provide the surge and higher availability demanded in hostilities. The same is true for aircraft.

Naval operations in a hostile environment require continuous airborne early warning support and in situ or immediately on-call combat air support. Australia has a major weakness in this respect because its F-35 joint strike fighter and Growler electronic attack aircraft are confined to land-based operations, and its fleets of E-7 airborne early warning and control aircraft and P-8 surveillance aircraft are too small to be on task in multiple locations continuously. The DSR is silent on how these issues will be overcome. It’s of note that the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force is converting its helicopter-carrying destroyers to become F-35B (V/STOL) capable. The RAN’s Canberra-class landing helicopter docks can operate SH-60 helicopters but, unlike their Spanish equivalents, were not constructed to operate F-35B aircraft.

We’ve proposed that the RAN should operate throughout our northern region on a consistent, if not constant, basis. The main purpose is to shore up regional capabilities so that our worst case—protection of our mainland—doesn’t become necessary. A viable peacetime naval task group would consist of at least three or four surface combatants and a dedicated support ship, plus one large ship such as a Canberra class to increase the number of Seahawk helicopters and uncrewed aerial vehicles in the group. In the future, that force should be directly supported by an SSN.

Maintaining such a force continuously in our region would also enable intensive denial operations, and would require approximately 18 major surface combatants and four or five support ships, and a commensurately larger number of helicopters. The number of SSNs required is likely to be closer to 12 than eight because they’re capable of simultaneously supporting a task group and conducting independent operations. At present, eight SSNs are planned to replace six Collins-class submarines.

In the 1980s, Kim Beazley wanted 17 major surface combatants to control choke points across Australia’s north, but they didn’t materialise, and since 1987 the RAN has shrunk. The DSR postulates that a similar operational requirement potentially exists for combat operations from the Cocos (Keeling) Islands to Townsville, but even with the Hunter frigate program Australia will only possess 12 such ships.

The RAN’s three Hobart-class ships ushered in Australia’s move towards the type of surface combatant we need, but three don’t deliver the sustainable combat power required. If the major surface combatant force remains at 12 ships (three Hobarts and nine Hunters), or up to 18 but including six corvettes, the force won’t have the capacity or capability to provide an adequate protective presence for our northern defence infrastructure, or the associated task of long-range precision strikes throughout our maritime approaches. Nor could it adequately protect amphibious deployments into the region, or the range and spread of strategically important shipping. The ill-conceived Hunter-class frigate program should be cancelled in favour of quickly building several updated Hobart class while longer term plans are developed, such as collaborating with the US Navy on its future large destroyer program.

The Cape-class patrol craft are adequate for law enforcement and sovereignty tasks into the future, and the need for the larger offshore patrol vessels should be reviewed. Their capability exceeds the patrol tasks required and they will be needlessly expensive to crew, operate and maintain.

The DSR proposes a highly ambitious strategy well beyond the current capability and capacity of all three armed services. We believe a significant expansion and restructuring of the RAN’s existing fleet is required. The air force and army are in similar positions. Funding the capability sought will require a substantial increase in resources allocated to Defence, but practical challenges will remain, especially the ability to recruit, train and retain personnel.

Since the announcement of the AUKUS partnership to equip Australia with conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs), there’s been an intense, and sometimes confusing, debate on how nuclear waste will be managed. Are we debating the development of a national nuclear waste facility or an AUKUS nuclear waste facility?

The government has committed to managing the radioactive waste generated by the submarines in accordance with its nuclear non-proliferation and other international obligations. But it has not mapped out how it will do that.

Defence has acknowledged that storage for this waste won’t be required until the mid-2050s when the Royal Australian Navy’s first Virginia-class submarine is expected to be decommissioned. That gives government about 30 years to deliver the supporting infrastructure.

The site-selection process for a national radioactive waste-management facility has been underway for more than 10 years since legislation passed in 2012. With the recent Federal Court decision to set aside the preferred location near the town of Kimba in South Australia, the process is set to start again. That ruling was focused on the decision-making and consultation process and the potential safety risks involved in double-handling radioactive waste between temporary and permanent storage facilities.

However, as outlined in The Strategist last month, establishing nuclear infrastructure, even on Defence land, demands robust stakeholder consultation, including with First Nations people, and extensive site due diligence, design development and approvals (planning, environmental and regulatory).

Australia’s only facility producing and storing radioactive material is managed by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation at Lucas Heights. That facility is nearing capacity. Nuclear waste from hospitals, universities, research labs, mining and defence sites is stored at more than 100 sites across the nation.

Australia doesn’t have a clear national approach to the temporary storage and permanent disposal of this waste, and a permanent, sustainable, whole-of-government solution is urgently needed.

Low-level and intermediate-level waste ranges from medical equipment to clothing contaminated by exposure to radioactivity. High-level waste is a byproduct of nuclear reactors and is expected to include the decommissioned radioactive fuel rods from the SSNs. In addition, Australia has had radioactive-waste-swap arrangements with the British and French that will increase pressure on Australia’s long-term nuclear waste-disposal solutions.

Radioactivity is emitted by nuclear waste until it decays into more stable forms, which can take hundreds of thousands of years. The US Environmental Protection Agency warns that high-level waste will remain dangerous for at least 10,000 years.

With proper maintenance, the life span of a storage facility is typically about 50 years. The Lucas Heights facility was designed to store intermediate-level waste for up to 100 years. It was constructed in 1989 and has 66 years of life remaining.

Considering Australia’s increased low- and intermediate-level waste requirements, and the new high-level waste requirements arising from AUKUS, there seems to be an overall deficit of about 9,900-plus years in nuclear waste storage.

That makes this an atypical infrastructure investment decision for government. How can we guarantee that whatever construction is chosen will remain sound in hundreds, let alone thousands, of years? Decisions made today will impact future generations.

Australia can look to Finland, which is developing long-term repositories capable of storing up to 6,500 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste. The Finnish facility has been designed to store nuclear waste for at least 100,000 years, encasing spent nuclear fuel in copper canisters to be placed in tunnels drilled into bedrock 430 metres below ground and 420 metres below sea level.

Unlike our European counterparts, Australia has the advantage of abundant land for such a facility. It has been suggested that a site in Defence’s 120,000-square-metre Woomera Range Complex in the northwest of South Australia may ultimately be chosen for Australia’s nuclear waste. As with any other location, that would require extensive due diligence and consultation.

To prevent a recurrence of the errors made during the Kimba site-selection process, the government should take a page from Finland’s playbook, which addressed the concerns of affected populations and stakeholders by being transparent and engaging in active consultation from the outset.

A top-down approach to site selection and construction of nuclear waste infrastructure won’t suffice. While the government has stated its intent to ‘consult widely and bring stakeholders, including First Nations people along with us’, it hasn’t shared the proposed roadmap to implementation. Will nuclear waste be stored in a central repository or will AUKUS nuclear waste be managed separately?  What are the basic principles and approaches to consulting with the public, including landowners and First Nations people? What are the governance arrangements, given that the problem cuts across federal and state governments and international regulators and agencies?

Finally, as with all major infrastructure projects, future proofing will be crucial. In undertaking the site selection and design development, it’s important to consider that a future government may decide to adopt nuclear energy as part of a strategy to deal with climate change, or could change its position on nuclear weapons, as the Menzies government did in 1958 when it asked Britain to help Australia acquire tactical nuclear weapons. That push was abandoned with Australia’s ratification of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1973.

Bureaucracy is boring. But it also matters. Complex public projects don’t just happen—they demand the dedication of public servants and effective organisational structures.

With the nuclear-powered submarines to be acquired under the AUKUS partnership, Australia has set itself perhaps the most ambitious public-procurement undertaking in its history. To match the scale of this venture, according to a report in The Australian, the submarine taskforce led by Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead will evolve and grow into a new ‘a stand-alone group inside Defence that will draw personnel from across the government’.

In public-service speak, a ‘group’ is usually the largest organisational unit in a federal government department, headed by a deputy-secretary-level public servant or a three-star military officer. That the submarine acquisition is being elevated to this level reflects the magnitude of the enterprise and the fact that it will become a permanent and dominant feature of the Australian defence organisation for decades to come.

Equally interesting, though, is the scope of this new group in Defence. The Australian described it as a multiagency group ‘responsible for all elements of the program, including safety, non-proliferation and regulatory measures, international engagement, education and training, industry development and project management’. Its head will have ‘a direct reporting line to Defence Minister Richard Marles’.

While the exact contours, structure and mandate of the group are yet to take shape, the role of this new organisational arrangement bears examination. Driven by the complexities of nuclear technology, the group’s remit reaches outside conventional defence policy domains into areas such as education and industrial policy that are usually led by domestic policy agencies at the federal and state level. Defence will have to acquire new policy capabilities to tackle these issues—but also develop networks and institutional relationships with a much wider range of domestic stakeholders. Moreover, the government will need to decide the exact limits of Defence’s policy leadership. Education and industrial policy are, for instance, intrinsically linked to labour and innovation policy.

The reported scope of the group also includes policy domains and functions that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade would conventionally lead, namely international engagement and non-proliferation. For Defence instead to take leadership of these areas would mark a fundamental shift in the division of labour in Australian foreign policy.

All indicators point to a highly integrated organisational structure, essentially putting everything ‘SSN AUKUS’ under one roof inside Defence. Intuitively, that makes sense: the government wants all the people working on a project to be clearly organised and led, working with unity of purpose. But as a recent report by the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D) explains, there are complexities and trade-offs in the degree to which different tools of statecraft are coordinated and the mechanisms employed to do so.

A fully integrated, whole-of-government structure following a unified strategy that cuts across multiple policy areas represents the highest degree of coordination. But achieving this degree of integration is difficult: it is intellectually demanding and resource-intensive, requiring a clearly mandated and properly resourced entity such as a taskforce. Australia has previously used such an approach to respond to discrete issues or crises—for example, Operation Sovereign Borders and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands.

Full integration can sometimes, however, be counterproductive. Forcing different actors and tools of Australian statecraft to act within a singular worldview and command structure can diminish the unique strengths and comparative advantages that each brings to bear. There needs to be room for proper consideration of broader foreign policy equities within a structure that is unapologetically mission-focused on delivering defence capability. As the mixed reaction in the Indo-Pacific to AUKUS has demonstrated, Australia can’t assume an overall permissive environment for its strategic policy, so diplomacy is as vital to manifesting the submarines as building a nuclear industrial base. These risks are, however, manageable through effective governance.

There are also other models short of full integration that could be considered. The Office of the Pacific—which comprises a group in DFAT under deputy-secretary-level leadership—is one approach to managing whole-of-government policy by mandating an area to have oversight of all policy and drive overarching strategy in collaboration with a wide range of agencies, including Defence and Home Affairs. This is a level down from ‘full integration’: it broadly aligns actors around overarching goals and promotes information and resource sharing, while also recognising that specialisation and delegated responsibility across government are valuable.

Whatever way the government chooses to organise the AUKUS submarine group, AP4D’s research suggests that effective coordination of the actors and tools of statecraft is determined by several factors: a clear coordinating structure; clarity on objectives and narrative; sufficient resources and a strong ministerial mandate; effective bureaucratic leadership and staffing; and relevant agencies having a collective interest in the issue.

With the group’s head reporting directly to the deputy prime minister, at least one of these conditions is already satisfied. There’s also speculation that it could have its own budget line separate from the rest of Defence, helping ensure stable resourcing. On all the other factors, only time will tell. Most importantly, though, the government must remain open to evolving its AUKUS submarine ‘supergroup’ over time as it learns what works (and what doesn’t) in terms of structure, remit and mandate.