Australia’s new security partnership with the UK and the US, AUKUS, aims to deliver Australia a nuclear submarine capability.
The joint announcement said the countries would spend the next 18 months seeking the ‘optimal pathway’ to this goal.
It is not a very steep or tricky pathway. The obvious choice is the relatively new and highly capable US Virginia class nuclear attack submarine.
Nevertheless there will no doubt be millions of dollars spent on investigative work and dozens of fact-finding missions by ministers, advisers and public servants before the choice is confirmed.
Large though that spend will be, it won’t by any stretch be the most wasteful item of spending on the new submarine.
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