Added to that. To then protect those massive amphibious assault ships - which are targets, as you rightly point out - we need expensive, heavily armed and sophisticated air warfare destroyers which are facing massive cost blowouts and delayed delivery. So it’s a self fulfilling spiral and money pit for capabilities we probably don't need.
Not sure I'm a fan of the nuclear subs deal. Pleasing to see the dud deal that was torn up. But not sure the alternative is that much better, albeit in different ways. How many of these 'Rolls-Royce' subs are we going to be able to afford? Is it around only eight? So we are getting a fleet of eight Rolls-Royces, that we cannot service ourselves. When we probably needed 24-32 Toyotas we could service with much less outside assistance. That is the analogy I read today. Not only that. The first of these subs (only the first) will not be delivered for nearly 20 years! Put into context. Not only do youngsters currently at prime serving age never even see these in their potential window of service. Possibly neither do my children and their peers, who are only in early Primary School!
But this goes back to the overarching strategy. The eight nuclear 'Rolls-Royces' are designed to simply plug into the US military system as an ancillary force. And it virtually makes impossible, any independent management of the programme. It intertwines us even more closely to the US for the best part of the next century. That is a massive bet to place. That the US will be forthrightly in our region for the next century. That the US electorate is willing to 1) spend astronomical amounts and 2) Sacrifice their own safety for the sake of the likes of Taiwan, Australia, South Korea and Japan. Or that they will materially be capable of doing so 30, 40, 50 years down the track. Personally, I think that the US resolve on that is already wavering and will continue to. It was only less than a year ago that we got a taste of what a more isolationist, neurotic, unpredictable US could look like. In less than a year, we have forgotten. As if this was an anomaly and can't happen again. Such short sightedness.
Certainly South Korea isn't making that bet. They are taking a different path. Working hard to develop their own independent ballistic missiles and own independent nuclear submarine programme. Not saying that we need to develop the exact same capabilities as South Korea. But we should be reading these same signals that they are and moving towards a more self reliant defence posture. Like I said earlier. That doesn't come cheap. But sometimes optimum outcomes don't.
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