Although you’d be hard pressed to see much coverage in NZ media other than brief and superficial outlines, Australia, Britain and the US have now released more deals about AUKUS in San Diego this morning. It is actually Australia’s biggest spend on defence ever. Australia will initially home base, and then procure, five American Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines over the next decade. Australia will then (from the 2040s onwards) take part in a combined Aus – UK – USA production of the new AUKUS SSNs. It will cost AUS $368 Billion over the next three decades.
Geoffrey Miller spoke to Rachel Smalley on the radio about this this morning before the deal was announced. The aim of the deal is very much as a response to growing militarisation of the Indo-Pacific region, all thanks to China flexing its muscles. Retired Australian Major General Mick Ryan analyses the deal here, pointing out that the cost of the submarines is 0.5% of GDP per year alone. That’s an eye-watering amount of money being spent to upgrade the ADF.
Response from NZ’s officials has been muted. Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has been silent on the issue, as has Minister of Defence Andrew Little. It seems that the mainstream media in this country doesn’t care about this huge news:
The only peep from NZ’s leaders has been the usual dogma about our nuclear-free status:
Nuclear-powered is not the same as nuclear-armed. It is extraordinary that NZ produced the great Ernest Rutherford, and now we spurn one of the greatest discoveries of humanity – the power of splitting the atom! So our closest (and only formal) ally, Australia, are going to be forbidden from sending their most expensive and capable defence asset to our waters. Just because of its (zero-emissions) powerplant.
NZ does not need to invest in nuclear powered submarines, and would also be unwise to get involved in conventional submarines. But our adversaries and potential adversaries very much are in the game. China is becoming more and more belligerent, and peaceful democracies in the region are all responding by increasing their defence spending.
Except New Zealand. We are alone in terms of developed and peace-loving countries in the Indo-Pacific region not upgrading our defence force. Our allies will soon stop bothering with us, and will not have any reason to share with us any benefits of any peace to be enjoyed after whatever is coming next.
It’s all well and good being physically isolated in the South West Pacific. But the interconnectedness of the world these days means our geographical location is not the blessing it used to be. It’s time for NZ to step up our game and offer something of value to our allies.
We can offer a good idea on what to name them though:
No Minister 
The previous post’s name started with “God Defend New Zealand”.
That is the sum total of defense spend New Zealand will be able to fund for many years hence.
LOL – the Aussies had a contract with French shipyards to build replacements for their aging submarines.
The US thugocracy bullied the Aussie Government into reneging on the deal and buying their white elephants instead.
Both Governments ultimately bent over and took it up the rear end at the expense of their own people to support the American defence industry
Argentina had a contract with French armaments manufacturers for supply of exocet missiles during the Falklands war. Look where that got them.
While France was saying the subs would be built in Australia, the duplicitous pricks were promising all the jobs (6,000) to their own ship yards.
Diesel subs from the French vs Nuke from the USA/UK. Which would you prefer? The Chicom’s would have preferred the diesels. Much easier to keep tabs on them.
Answer me this Adolf and John – what are submarines for?
Are they offensive or defensive weapons?
Historically their major role has been to conduct sneak attacks on merchant shipping
More latterly they have been conceived as a tool for creeping up on an opponent Nation undetected and launching missile attacks against its people and infrastructure.
Neither Australia nor New Zealand need submarines, what they need are effective counter measures to counter them
Yes, agreed Andre.
The Yanks, the Indians, the Japanese and Taiwanese can do the heavy lifting for the offense, we just need to be there abouts with a cost effective defense force.
Im sure you would agree less welfare more defense
Thats why NZ is investing in airborne detection, we have one operational sub hunter, the others have been mothballed, but more to come.
Frigates have got a bad name, especially in the US where the cost doesn’t justify their build or effectiveness.
Sorry Wayne, Ive always maintained you bark at the wrong tree
“Navy matters” Blog suggests Corvettes, a specialized, purpose built ship ASW.
It could be either depending on your posture.
The traditional use of submarines is interdicting shipping. The sale to Australia is attack submarines, not boomers. Your comments about attacking civilians and infrastructure simply shout out your Putinist Russian mindset.
AUKUS are dealing with expansionist China. Therefore the reason for the subs is to oppose expansion which means attacking ships.
China is growing is stature because the Chinese people work a lot harder than you degenerate Anglos, creating things people want to buy like iPhones along with cheap underwear and much else besides.
“Therefore the reason for the subs is to oppose expansion which means attacking ships.” actually means destroying trade goods produced by honest hard labour to keep people that you consider sub human and inferior to your self in their place and is plain old Mafia tactics.
We recently saw the level of criminality the West is capable of with the wanton destruction if the Nord Stream Pipelines a few months ago, a move which denies Europe access to cheap Russian energy and forces them to buy the far more expensive American and Norwegian alternatives.
And although you will try and pretend that what is being done is for the noblest of reasons the veil is being lifted.
This happened a week ago, not that you would know because it will not be reported by your own Government propaganda organs like TV One News.
Over the vast majority of the globe the West is rightly seen as dishonest, duplicitous and degenerate
Australia has a huge EEZ and is a veritable treasure chest of natural resources. As a trillion-dollar plus economy they believe it is essential that this is protected. Australia as a maritime trading nation with over 90% of its imports and exports arriving by sea and it sees submarines as offering the most effective deterrent and defensive capabilities of any weapon system. Just as significantly, submarines are an important intelligence gathering capability enabling the country to generate intelligence traffic, not only for itself but also on behalf of its ‘5 Eyes’ partners (which we as Kiwi’s benefit from) and other selected defence allies, thus providing another layer of security through having advanced situational awareness.
Andrei why so much hate for those you live amongst?
Please leave.
Old C,
I don’t “hate for those” I “live amongst”
Au Contraire”, I love you, for the most part you are decent people with honorable intentions as are average Americans.
But you are being led down the garden path by some of the most malignant people who have ever lived.
New Zealand is a trading nation surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean – anyone with a modicum of sense should understand your best interests rely upon the ability of this sovereign Nations ability to ship the products we produce to markets that are willing to trade those products for those items we are not able to produce locally at an economical price.
There was a time when the biggest company in NZ was the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand Limited , head office Dunedin which was the largest shipping company in the entire Southern Hemisphere. This was surrendered by Quisling politicians subservient to the Godless American Empire to weaken New Zealand to keep New Zealand dependant and subservient to overseas interests . New Zealand circa 2023 has no merchant fleet to speak of and a Navy unsure of what its purpose is other than to hassle the foreign fishing vessels that fish in our waters, another industry handed over to foreign interests by our Quisling politicians
Throughout the history of this Dominion New Zealand has been a source of cannon fodder for the Empire, first the British Empire and then the American after the USA won WW2 and put the UK under the
jackbootug boot.Young New Zealand men, Pakeha and Maori were sent to die in South Africa during the Boer War for the British Empire, a fact you have probably forgotten
Farm Boys from the Wairarapa and Waikato died at Gallipoli, the irony being that had that campaign been succesful the land they occupied would have been absorbed into the Russian Empire because that was the deal the British and French Governments had cut with the Russian one – you probably don’t even know this.
And did that serve the interests of the New Zealand people of 100 years ago? Hell no!
They would have been a lot better off sending Canterbury Lamb to the Ottoman Empire shipped in Union Steamship Co vessels, built in Whangarei, maintained in Port Chalmers and crewed by young Maori and Pakeha men.
But no – the Royal New Zealand Navy was configured to be integrated into the Royal Navy to serve the interests of London not Wellington
And that is what this post is talking about now – The Australian Navy being configured to interfere with Chinese Merchant shipping in the South China Sea to serve the interests of the political classes Washington DC and their funders and certainly not interests the average Australian citizen whose sons will go to “Davy Jones Locker” to help keep Nancy Pelosi’s freezer stocked with designer ice cream when they should be crewing Australian Bulk Carriers carrying Bauxite and coal to China in exchange for hi tech electronics to enrich the lives of both Chinese and Australian citizens alike
I have to ask are you some kind of parody account like that Sir Cullen thing over at Kiwiblog?
The actual combat systems in the RAN Attack Class were always going to be from Lockheed Martin – so the US were doing fine. At the time of the down-selection of the Shortfin Barracuda Block 1A from DCNS of France which was the basis for the Attack Class both US submarine yards available which were fully committed to building the next Gen USN boats and thus there was no spare capacity to build for a 3rd party, even if it was their good buddies the Aussies. Eight years later that has changed with increased drumbeat capacity at Groton and Newport News.
Well, I suggest we buy 4 Corvettes rather than 3 Frigates.
They are a damn site cheaper than Frigates, did a superb job in the Atlantic in WW2, and are specialism sub hunters, not a frigate which is a mix and match, pick and mix.
That gives us flexibility in the budget while buying something that does the job it is designed for.
In reality there is not much difference in cost between a modern corvette and a frigate. Often they use the same combat and sensor systems, which are the expensive bits on any warship.
The fundamental difference is their role and purpose. Corvettes are short range warships and typically used in the littorals as fast attack craft where as frigates with their larger hull (meaning more bunkerage for fuel and other necessary sustainment factors) are ideal for long range ocean patrols for the escorting of merchant shipping and naval sealift and support vessels.
If we physically shifted New Zealand to say the Mediterranean or the archipelago of SE Asia then Corvettes would be a great idea, but alas we have the longest sea-lines of communication of any 1st world trading country so I am afraid Corvettes would be entirely useless in the New Zealand context.
A search on Wikipedia reveals 40+ countries operate corvettes.
A proposed structure of the US Navy doesn’t actually mention Frigates, as follows:
Destroyer 80
Destroyer (ASW) Escort 60
ASW Corvette 40
Corvettes have ranges of 5000 nm. I dont think ours, if purchased would be operating in inshore Chinese waters.
Clearly if we bought asw corvettes we would be compatible with our main and only big ally, the USA.
We dont want to support Australian ship building of a boat that is not wanted, better still the US would probably sell us some good used corvettes.!
Besides what ever we buy will need US oiler support anyway, figate or corvette.
WW2 has many useful lessons, corvettes were one of them, and that lesson is still very relevant today.
It all comes down to having a clear focus on what our role is, and clearly that is not having a hybrid ship called a frigate!!
And what is our role when the world goes bang?
Our role is to do what the Americans tell us to do.
When they tell us to do something we need ships that are useful to them
When they tell us to do something they want to know we have specialist well trained crews in doing one thing, hunting Chinese submarines.
They may tell us to keep our 4 corvettes in our waters
They may tell us to move them to off shore Australia
They may tell us to move them up to the Solomons and hunt the slots up there.
If the war is protracted they will probably give us more Corvettes to man, that vwill be easy as we will already be comfortable in using their product.
Its easy, once you think out the role and how we slot into the American fleet the ships we need to purchase drop out of that equation.
Rossco here is the actual USN plan. It is a bit more authoritive than wiki.
Click to access PB23%20SHIPBUILDING%20PLAN%2018%20APR%202022%20FINAL.PDF
It does not mention Frigates because people who read this stuff for a living or at least used to, know that a Frigate is normally classified as a small surface combatant in the linga franca of US defence documents.
The last Corvette type of vessel in the USN fleet was the Littoral Combat Ship, which are being replaced by the FFG-62 Constellation Class Frigates. The LCS conceived in the 1990’s was a total failure, which attempted to combine Mine Warfare, ASW and Naval Combat roles on a small 3500 tonne hull. With the rise of China into a major aggressive naval power and the pivot into the Indo-Pacific away from the MENA (where Corvettes and LCS’s once would have made sense looking through a 1990’s lens) in terms of strategic emphasis by the United States, Corvettes as a naval warfighting concept are dying out as a naval vessel type. In fact the USN has not used the Corvette classification since the 1940’s and used Destroyer Escort for Frigates up until 1975.
When you say the world goes bang I am assuming that this will mean a move against Taiwan or Pratas Island (Go find that on the map – see where it is and see what liberal democratic countries in that part of the world like Korea and Japan who need the status quo to remain as it is and why it is fundamentally important as a strategic link) Any move by the PLA(N) and PLA(AF) against Taiwan or indeed Pratas wont be just against the ROC; virtually every defence and security analyst in Northern Asia (US, Japan and Korea) realises that their will be a simultaneous drive to pierce the second island chain.
Thus your awkward description of the Yanks telling is to go to the Solomon’s or reinforce northern Australia is to give you some credit actually for strategically sound thinking. It is not just that the Yanks will be wanting us to secure the flanks in the South Pacific – though certainly COMCINCINDOPAC will certainly be saying that to our government – everybody who we trade with other than the belligerents will be doing so. But of course it is in our best interests too.
The next “surface combatant” to replace the Anzac class frigates may well be the smallest surface combatant used by the USN as you suggest and their are sustainment and support advantages in doing so. But it is not a Corvette, as they don’t really exist anymore, but a Frigate – specifically the FFG-62 Constellation Class, because like submarines, Frigates are intelligence gathering platforms as well as being a multirole vessel type that is able to also do ASW, ASuW, EW and AW. The reality: we have to be able to do all those roles as they are a necessity in the context of the 21st century maritime domain that we face in the years ahead. One other reason why a Frigate is even more important now is that we already have fragility in our SLOC with respect to the importation of all oil, petroleum, other vital industrial products since Marsden has gone.
I also agree that the Hunter Class Type 26 Frigate is outrageously too expensive and offers only slightly better ASW capability for what is looking likely nearly twice the build cost of a FFG-62, and in reality twice the capability of the Inspiration Class Type 31 for only slightly more money.
Reblogged this on Utopia, you are standing in it!.