\n<\/p>\n
Military history is littered with the corpses of apex predators.<\/p>\n
The Gatling gun, the battleship, the tank. All once possessed unassailable power \u2013 then were undermined, in some cases wiped out, by the march of new technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeed and stealth and firepower,\u201d the head of the Australian Submarine Agency, Jonathan Mead, told the Guardian two years ago of Australia\u2019s forthcoming fleet of nuclear submarines. \u201cThe apex predator of the oceans.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for how much longer?<\/p>\n
In the first quarter of the 21st century, nuclear submarines have proven a formidable force: essentially undetectable deadly attack weapons. Some also carry a vital \u201csecond-strike\u201d deterrent effect: any attack on a country armed with nuclear-powered submarines is made with the knowledge that retaliation is certain \u2013 from a warship hidden beneath the waves.<\/p>\n
But a drumbeat of declarations \u2013 much of it speculative but most of it from China, the very nation the Aukus pact was established to counter \u2013 report rapid developments in submarine-detection technologies: vast networks of acutely sensitive sonar arrays; quantum sensing; improved satellite tracking able to spot tiny perturbations in the ocean\u2019s surface; technologies that detect minute disturbances in the Earth\u2019s magnetic field; real-time AI processing of vast reams of data.<\/p>\n
Could emerging technologies render the last opaque place on Earth \u2013 the oceans \u2013 transparent?<\/p>\n
It may not be so binary, the oceans may become, in parts, less impenetrable: key contested sea lanes and littoral areas may be intensely surveilled, while remote, deep trenches remain arcane.<\/p>\n
Forecasting a future conflict is fraught. But the consequences for Australia, having dedicated an extraordinary $368bn towards its Aukus nuclear submarine fleet, are immense: will the apex predator of today become the prey of tomorrow?<\/p>\n
One brutal assessment put it in stark terms, Australia\u2019s fleet of nuclear-powered submarines may end up being \u201cbillion-dollar coffins\u201d.<\/p>\n
Q&A<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span>Show<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Pillar one of the Australia-UK-US (Aukus) agreement involves Australia being given the technology to command its own fleet of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines. There are two stages:<\/p>\n \u2022 First, Australia will buy between three and five Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the US, the first of these in 2032. But before any boat can be sold to Australia, the US commander-in-chief \u2013 the president of the day \u2013 must certify that the US relinquishing a submarine will not diminish its navy\u2019s undersea capability. The US submarine fleet now has only three-quarters of the submarines it needs (49 boats of a\u00a0force-level goal of 66). And there are significant concerns the US cannot build enough submarines for its own needs, let alone any for Australia.<\/p>\n \u2022 Second, by the \u201clate 2030s\u201d, according to the “optimal pathway” outlined in Australia\u2019s submarine industry strategy, the UK will launch the first specifically designed and built Aukus submarine for Britain\u2019s Royal Navy.<\/p>\n The first Australian-built Aukus submarine, for the Royal Australian Navy, will be in the water \u201cin the early 2040s\u201d. Australia will build up to eight Aukus boats, with the final vessels launched in the 2060s.<\/p>\n Each of Australia\u2019s nuclear submarines is forecast to have a working life of about three decades. Australia will be responsible for securing and storing the nuclear waste from its submarines – including high-level nuclear waste and spent fuel (a weapons proliferation risk) – for thousands of years.<\/p>\n Aukus is forecast to cost Australia up to A$368bn to the mid-2050s.<\/p>\n Photograph: Colin Murty\/AFP<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n There is an arms race under way underwater, dedicated to perfecting the technologies that can find submarines, and finding new ways to keep them hidden.<\/p>\n Vast resources are being poured into improving detection technologies and developing new ones: drones, sonobuoys, satellites, magnetometers, quantum sensors. All seek to shrink the spaces where submarines can hide.<\/p>\n Everything is being monitored: the tiniest disturbance in waves across vast stretches of ocean, fractionally altered sea temperatures, faint magnetic disturbances, bioluminescent trails \u2013 each could give a tiny clue to a submarine\u2019s path. Combined, they could reveal precisely where it is.<\/p>\n Allied to the extraordinary data-processing power of artificial intelligence, these present a formidable threat to submarines\u2019 invisibility. AI programs are able to cut through the \u201cnoise\u201d of masses of information, spotting unseen patterns or finding connections between disparate pieces of data, imperceptible to a human analyst.<\/p>\n Much of the technological advancement is being driven by China.<\/p>\n Submarines, made of metal, cause tiny distortions in the Earth\u2019s magnetic fields as they move through the water, changes increasingly detectable to sophisticated magnetometers.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/p>\n Last year a research team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University reported the development of a new seabed sensor able to detect the faint electromagnetic waves generated by a rotating submarine propeller from nearly 20km away, about 10 times the previous detection range.<\/p>\n And in a peer-reviewed study published in December, researchers in Xi\u2019an claimed to have developed an airborne magnetometer that can track the persistent trace of a submarine\u2019s magnetic wake.<\/p>\n Quantum sensors, which can detect infinitesimally small perturbations in the environment at an atomic level, promise even greater sensitivity and accuracy.<\/p>\n In April scientists from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said they had developed a drone-mounted quantum sensor system that could track submarines with pinpoint accuracy. They claim the coherent population trapping atomic magnetometer is as sensitive as the MAD-XR system used by Nato countries but far cheaper, and so able to be deployed at a massive scale.<\/p>\n These are the technologies that are known about but, as Dr Anne-Marie Grisogono of Flinders University points out, if an adversary had a technology to accurately detect submarines, would it tell anyone?<\/p>\n The arms race is, of course, accelerating on both sides \u2013 designers are working on counter-detection measures to make submarines ever more covert: anechoic tiles to defeat or confuse sonar; cooling systems to weaken detection by thermal imaging or infrared detection by satellites; \u201cdegaussing\u201d submarines to reduce magnetic signatures; and using pump-jet propulsors to produce less wake.<\/p>\n Grisogono was a co-author of the 2020 report Transparent Oceans, which argued that by the 2050s \u2013 as new Australian Aukus boats continued to be sent to sea \u2013 nuclear submarines \u201cwill be able to be detected in the world\u2019s oceans because of the evolution of science and technology\u201d.<\/p>\n She told Guardian Australia this year: \u201cThe likelihood that the oceans will become transparent at some time is basically 100%, it\u2019s just in what time frame.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd they could become transparent much sooner. We\u2019ve seen tremendous advances in artificial intelligence … an accelerant for all of these detection technologies that we are seeing developed.\u201d<\/p>\n Grisogono argued that it may not be one technology that renders submarines detectable. She can envisage a future of \u201cunderwater meshes of networked sensors\u201d using different technologies, all of which are expendable and none of which is critical to the network functioning.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an adaptive mesh of cheap components, and importantly, it\u2019s a distributed system, so you can\u2019t really take it out,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can lose quite a lot of them and still have a functioning network \u2026 and it\u2019s cheap.<\/p>\n \u201cIf your defensive system is really cheap and can take out really expensive assets from your opponent \u2026 the advantage is now to the defence, not to the attack.\u201d<\/p>\n Grisogono said Australia should use the opportunity before too much is committed to Aukus to re-evaluate its capacity, not to fight a war in 20 years but in 30, or 40, or 50.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should be asking bigger questions about our defence posture,\u201d she said. \u201cI think acquiring these nuclear-powered submarines really only makes sense if you\u2019re wanting to contribute and join into much bigger conflicts in the region with the US.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps when the decision was first taken, the logic of Aukus might be defensible in some way. But does that still stand up now?\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/span><\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n On a rainswept dock in Sydney this week, the Australian government announced it had committed $1.7bn towards buying \u201cdozens\u201d \u2013 precisely how many is classified \u2013 of Ghost Shark autonomous underwater vehicles.<\/p>\n <\/span>Ministers Richard Marles and Pat Conroy pose for photos in front of a Ghost Shark in Sydney in Wednesday. <\/span> Photograph: Kym Smith\/ADF\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Essentially an uncrewed submarine powered by AI, the Ghost Shark, the government says, will be able to \u201cconduct intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strike at extremely long distances from the Australian continent\u201d. With each one about the size of a minibus, they can be deployed from warships or launched off the coast.<\/p>\n The Guardian asked the defence minister, Richard Marles, whether the investment was a \u201chedge\u201d against a future where crewed submarines were detectable.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are very confident about Australia\u2019s future submarines being fundamentally critical to Australia\u2019s military capability,\u201d Marles responded, saying the Ghost Sharks would \u201ccomplement\u201d crewed nuclear submarines.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile there\u2019s a whole lot of advancements in technologies about detecting submarines, there\u2019s also a lot of advancements in technologies around making submarines harder to detect, and we are really confident about \u2026 giving Australia a highly capable, long\u2011range submarine capability in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Standing alongside the minister, Australia\u2019s chief of navy, V-Adm Mark Hammond, said he believed crewed submarines would grow more stealthy as efforts to detect them strengthened.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard about \u2018transparent oceans\u2019 since I qualified in submarines 31 years ago, and nothing\u2019s really changed: every advancement in detection capability is usually met by an advancement in encounter detection capability and increased stealth.\u201d<\/p>\n The land and the air were \u201ccompletely transparent\u201d, Hammond said, \u201cand no one has stopped building ships and aircraft\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cMy personal belief is that the undersea battle space will continue to be increasingly congested, increasingly contested, but ultimately that is the most opaque environment on the planet, and I believe that our allies and partners will continue to enjoy the capability advantage in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.<\/p>\n Prof Peter W Singer, a strategist at the New America thinktank, cites Arthur C Clarke\u2019s famed third law.<\/p>\n He tells the Guardian that the rapid pace of change across technological domains, accelerated by developments in AI, makes predicting future developments \u2013 especially beyond the span of a human or technological generation \u2013 increasingly fraught.<\/p>\n Australia\u2019s first Aukus submarines are scheduled to be in the water in the 2040s. They will still be under construction into the 2060s.<\/p>\n \u201cTwenty years is a very long time when it comes to technology \u2026 what\u2019s a generation for undersea warfare: is it every 30 years? Every 15 years? Every 10 years? We\u2019re talking about a pretty substantial period of time,\u201d Singer says.<\/p>\n An accelerating trend is \u201cgreater observation of the battlefield, and the worry that once stealthy systems might be detectable\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they\u2019re detectable, they\u2019re destroyable,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cMilitary leaders around the world are wrestling with this \u2013 whether they are in the ADF, Nato, the US Navy Marine Corps \u2013 there\u2019s a trend where essentially the apex predators are looking around and wondering if they are now the prey.\u201d<\/p>\n The Marianas Trench \u2013 largely uncharted and reaching depths beyond human exploration \u2013 might remain unknowable, Singer says, but key sea lanes in the South China Sea could be intensely surveilled.<\/p>\n He cites the cold war example of the GIUK Gap \u2013 naval choke points in the North Atlantic \u2013 which was populated by a battery of hydrophones designed to detect the passage of Soviet submarines.<\/p>\n Singer predicts that undersea warfare of the future will not be a battle between crewed submarines but between hybrid fleets of new technologies, including unmanned underwater vehicles, potentially working in concert with crewed subs. UUVs will be far cheaper and expendable in comparison with traditional submarines.<\/p>\n The terrestrial equivalent is Ukraine\u2019s revolutionary use of cheap but lethal armed drones to counter Russia\u2019s invasion. Expendable drones worth a few hundred dollars are taking out tanks that cost tens of millions, halting entire offensives.<\/p>\n \u201cThe uncrewed systems are not all going to be like a pet on a leash, they\u2019re going to be increasingly operating on their own,\u201d Singer says.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you may have some physically large systems that need to go long distances and carry massive payloads, but you may also have smaller systems, maybe with less range but, because they\u2019re smaller, they\u2019re cheaper, and you can essentially fill the battle space with them.\u201d<\/p>\n The upshot is a balancing act, Singer says \u2013 accepting that decision-makers have neither a perfect view of the future nor an unlimited budget.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not saying \u2018don\u2019t buy Virginia Class\u2019 or \u2018don\u2019t buy Aukus\u2019,\u201d he says. \u201cI think they do bring value. The question is how much of a bet do you want to make?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Military history is littered with the corpses of apex predators. The Gatling gun, the battleship, the tank. All once possessed unassailable power \u2013 then were undermined, in some cases wiped out, by the march of new technology. \u201cSpeed and stealth and firepower,\u201d the head of the Australian Submarine Agency, Jonathan Mead, told the Guardian two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[12965,2059,7617,12963,744,8876,12966,722,12964,417],"class_list":{"0":"post-21126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-aukus","9":"tag-australian","10":"tag-billiondollar","11":"tag-coffins","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-oceans","14":"tag-submarines","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-transparent","17":"tag-vulnerable"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What is Aukus pillar one?<\/h4>\n
Underwater arms race<\/h2>\n
\u2018We should be asking bigger questions\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018We are very confident\u2019<\/h2>\n
Detectable equals destroyable<\/h2>\n