AUKUS

[WE Branch Fanatic]

The Times: ‘Like a scene from Le Carré’: how the nuclear submarine pact was No 10’s biggest secret

When the First Sea Lord was invited to a meeting at the Australian high commission in March this year, he had no idea of the magnitude of what was about to unfold. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin — described by colleagues as a “doer” — was asked by Vice-Admiral Michael Noonan, the Australian Chief of Navy, whether the British and Americans could help their ally to build a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

The 12 Barracuda diesel-electric submarines that Australia had agreed to purchase from France five years earlier as part of a £47 billion contract were no longer enough to ward off the threat from China, which was pouring billions of pounds into building the world’s largest navy and fortifying islands outside its territorial waters.

They wanted ones that were faster, stealthier and with almost limitless endurance. The key was “surveillance”, according to defence sources familiar with the discussions.

“They had carried out a review and the ones they were getting were not fit for purpose. China has a lot of money but is not developed in some areas of capability,” the defence source said. The Australians wanted nuclear-powered submarines to “move quietly, sit outside a port, track movements, keep an eye on undersea cables and follow submarines in a move to curb Chinese reach in the region”, they added.

Both Britain and America not only had six decades of experience building up their own sovereign capability but were crucially in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partnership with Australia — unlike France — which meant they might be persuaded to give up their nuclear technology.

“That was the first contact. It was a big strategic play. He [Radakin] then came back and handed the whole thing over to [Sir Stephen] Lovegrove,” said a security source referring to the permanent secretary at that time at the Ministry of Defence. The source compared it to a scene out of the fictional John le Carré spy novels.

So began Operation Hookless — as it was codenamed inside No 10 —and the most closely guarded secret inside government in years. Only about ten people in Britain were privy to the details, including the prime minister, the foreign secretary and the defence secretary. Lovegrove, who was still the Ministry of Defence’s permanent secretary when handed the proposal, left the department to take on the job of national security adviser, making him even better placed to help carve out the deal of his career. John Bew, Johnson’s foreign policy adviser and the mastermind behind the integrated review that talked of a “tilt” towards the Indo-Pacific region, was also allowed into the fold. Those who were present were “read in”, meaning they had to sign a paper vowing not to let the secret details of the discussions out of the room.

After the initial meeting in March, the proposal was put to the Americans. “It took quite a long time to go through the American machine — it had to be discussed at the Pentagon, the state department and the energy department,” the source said. In the weeks that followed, those in the British circle believed there was a “20 per cent chance of it falling apart”.

The clock was ticking for the Australians, who warned the British government that there was a looming deadline where the costs for the French deal would quickly rack up and there would be no getting out of it. “The internal dynamics were delicate. It could easily have not come together,” said the security source.

Although initial conversations had begun around the submarines, back in No 10 an excited Johnson was keen for something much deeper. “Boris really pushed it. There was a choice about how broad it would be — was it just a technical agreement on a specific subject or is this more broad? Boris was pushing that it had to be as ambitious as possible. This was a strategic move,” a government source who was involved in the discussions said.

By the time of the G7 summit in Cornwall in June, the plans were well under way. As the French were occupied with the unfolding so-called “sausage war” over the Brexit divorce deal, Johnson, President Biden and Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister — referred to as “ScoMo” in No 10 — thrashed out the details of a top-secret pact that would later be known as the “Aukus” defence and security alliance.

“There was a lot of noise at G7 about sausages and the EU and there was a lot of excitement around that, and it seemed odd for us that we were doing serious, serious, business in this meeting,” the government source added.

Yet they were braced for a backlash not only from China, but also from the French. A source said that Australia’s existing submarine deal with the French had put everyone in a “difficult situation”, adding: “No one had any desire to piss off the French, everyone knew it would be difficult.” Defence sources said that it was “nothing personal”, adding it was about the kit and questioned whether the French — who also have nuclear-powered submarines — would have been willing to share their sovereign capabilities with the Australians. The defence source said that it was different for the British given the fact the Australians were in the Commonwealth.

“Once you give that information you cannot get it back. You can only give it to the nations that you will be friends with for ever,” said the defence source, caveating the comment with the fact they said the UK was also extremely close to the French.

Although the rise of China was the “first order of concern” for the Australians, government sources said the pact went much deeper than Beijing and was more about the decades going forward and other security issues that could arise. “This matters in three administrations,” they said.

After the announcement of the pact this week, Lovegrove described it as “the most significant capability collaboration anywhere in the world in the past decades”. Senior figures in government have compared it to the 1958 mutual defence agreement (MDA) between President Eisenhower and Harold Macmillan, the British prime minister, and the beginning of the “special nuclear relationship” that allows the nations to exchange nuclear materials, technology and information — an agreement which continues today.

Given the importance of AUKUS, it is perhaps not surprising that Radakin — the man who brought it in — is rumoured to be one of two likely candidates for the new job as head of the armed forces.