Originally Posted by
T28B
One man's opinion: if the Trump Administration fails to keep AUKUS moving forward, it would be an immense strategic error.
Appears today that Washington is now considering the transfer of used Virginia SSN's to Australia for AUKUS to leave a capability gap back home. That would be an interesting spike in the tyres of AUKUS.
Spent lots of my time tracking boomers and SS, SSN's and I contend that the SS/SSK/SSG gives by far the greatest strategic impact within the area of responsibility of Australia. AIP gives all the range and the transit capability that is needed for the boats, unless Australia has an intent to intimidate parties outside of it's area of interests, and that seems to be better left to those that have a concept of hegemony that is not in the Aussie lexicon, or at least wasn't when I was wearing their uniform.
Aussie has all the sun, sand and beer it needs, unlike [Insert relevant state e.g.; Russia] which has every reason to want to go anywhere but [reinsert relevant state name, like Russia].
The frogs and germans design pretty good boats, with only the occasional D'oh moment. The poms make adequate boats too, but seem to be reliant on alliance partners due to the early 60's politics still impacting their initiative.