By Marcus Hellyer and Andrew Nicholls*
In our previous post, we considered the likelihood of the US providing Australia with Virginia-class submarines this decade. Doing so would require the US Navy to give up two of its nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) at a time it is facing a capability crunch of its own. While anything is possible, it seems unlikely, particularly when we also consider that Australia will also need to demonstrate that it can exercise responsible stewardship of the nuclear capability.
What, then, can Australia do to accelerate the development of a usable SSN capability?
