US and UK to now furnish Australia with nuclear submarines.

The Australian nuclear submarines will be constructed in Australia , Australia isn't afraid to look to other countries to equip it's military ,

They took on EU helicopter gunship when everyone else went to the American Apache , nearly two decades later they are finally coming around to using the Apache to replace the Eurocopter Tiger,

Germany and UK will supply boxer armour vehicles ,and they are currently evaluating several new infantry fighting vehicles ,

I reckon the submarines will be the right choice for Australia going forward in the longer term ,

They will be essentially part of international nuclear submarine taskforce that can operate covering larger parts of the oceans

A zero base in Nuclear subs yes, but not in Sub building.

Collins class was built in Australia and they have a significant history of operating subs and refit capabilities for conventional powered.

I agree that getting this deal to be popular in Oz is going to be an issue but the Morrison govt has already run the plans past Labour and it seems it's a cross party agreement.

The French messed up and were not playing ball, so it was taken off them. I wouldn't be surprised if Australia offered the French some of the work in exchange for no penalties. There already is a sub base the Americans use at Garden Island in Wester Australia. The north of Australia isn't a great place for sophisticated naval facilities as it would be hard to attract the social and technical infrastructure needed to support them, in terms of paying people to live there. Australia already has a significant problem with attracting and keeping personnel on their existing sub fleet due to the hardships of long patrols. One or two of the Collins boats can't currently be fielded because there is insufficient personel and numbers are falling. Getting people to staff a major sub base in the north is an absolute no goer.

But Australia aren't in NATO and are not required to use STANAG requirements ,most of which are down to common ammunition and comms and procedures so any NATO country can use the same munitions and equipment without the need for specialist training or storage .

Honestly I'm far more wary of America's plans than Chinas.

China is presently a threat to world democracy.It is currently undermining the economic wellbeing of Australia and threatening Taiwan,Vietnam and the Philippines among others.All of these countries need support from the so called lapdogs as a poster called them-a comment straight out of the last century-the early part.The next world war will begin in South East Asia and the lap dog Ireland(a real neutral lapdog,if one ever existed) won't be exempt from the effects.

They had a deal with the French to build them 12 Diseal powered subs for the cost of $90 Billion AUD.

The cost of this new deal has not been released yet, but the cost for the Diseal subs was astronomical for a product that did not do the job correctly. Looking at the figures, nuclear seems to be the way to go alright. The Pacific and Indian oceans together comprise 66% of the world's oceans.

It will go ahead alright. This is the first time in over 60 years that the Americans are willing to share their Nuclear sub technology with anyone. They did it once with the UK back in the 1950's. Even allies like the Canadians, Israel, Japan don't have access to this American tech. Deals and policies like this are not made on the hoof, they are trashed over for years.

I saw someone on youtube say that when they made the French deal 5 years ago, the American deal was neither not on the table or possible. Now 5 years on and the nature of a more aggressive China is clear, the Americans were much more open to this deal, hence why they made it.

There is other stuff in this deal as well, like more Intelligence sharing and the Australians buying up the US Tomahawk missiles to be put on their destroyers. Also, access for American subs to dock and use Australian naval ports.

Everybody assumes that. Neither the UK nor the US defence industries are in the habit of handing out free stuff.

What often happens is that the US or UK government hands out cash to foreign governments, in the form of "loans" or "aid", which the foreign governments then use to buy the products of the UK or US defence industries. But it's hard to see that happening here; Australia is not in the class of countries that can credibly be the recipient of soft loans or aid grants from the UK or the US.

Thats only because you hear and can see some of Americas plans such as this, you should absolutely be more wary of china for the simple fact we dont hear about even 1% of what they are up to.

In fairness, may not be "99%" and of course the language barrier doesn't help us but the government there is not very transparent at all (as we understand such things here).

I think most of what is supposedly "known" about what China are doing in Xinjiang for example has come from escapees/relatives accounts and from illegally leaked documents (i.e. whistleblowing). It's very easy for China (and their supporters) to deny it all, claim it is exaggerated/propaganda spread about by enemies of China.

We also still don't know what happened with Covid-19 and the bits of information that did emerge earlier in pandemic when situation was chaotic and before the govt. had full control are now being supressed in favour of an official narrative that "no one really knows where this disease came from - could have been Italy, or made in the US etc" - lets not look into it too much! Anybody asking unpleasant questions is quickly "hopped on" as trying to undermine China (see Australia).

You need to brush up on your history.