Australia and Brazil are poised to become the first states without nuclear weapons to put conventionally armed, nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) to sea. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has published a collection of research arguing that it is important for both governments and others to think through these questions and to develop clear and robust ways to manage the associated challenges before the boats enter the water.
Australia is acquiring SSNs through its AUKUS partnership with the United Kingdom and United States. As part of a phased approach, Canberra plans to first purchase a number of U.S. Virginia-class SSNs in the early 2030s before developing SSN-AUKUS submarines in conjunction with its partners and deploying those submarines in the 2040s. The United States and United Kingdom will provide Australia with complete, welded units of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to fuel the submarines’ reactors. Using HEU means there will be no need for refueling during the service lives of the boats.
Meanwhile, Brazil is developing an indigenous nuclear reactor for its SSN fleet, though France is assisting with the non-nuclear components of the submarine design. The Brazilian Navy owns and operates the country’s uranium enrichment program, which it will use to provide low-enriched uranium to fuel the submarines. The submarine design will require the reactors to be refueled several times to prolong the service lives of the boats. The Navy plans to deliver the first SSN in the late 2030s.
Even while their programs differ in these notable respects, Australia and Brazil are traversing similar issues in developing, institutionalizing, and operationalizing SSNs at the same time, raising important questions about the broader implications of their SSN programs.
Even while their programs differ . . . Australia and Brazil are traversing similar issues in developing, institutionalizing, and operationalizing SSNs.
Why are Australia and Brazil seeking SSNs in the first place? The two countries are situated in very distinct geostrategic contexts, yet both see the need for this advanced capability that, compared to the diesel submarines they currently operate, will afford them perceived military advantages such as greater range and stealth. Both countries publicly identify a deterrence missionfor their SSN programs, but what will this mean in practice? How will they address the potential strategic impacts of these systems, including concerns by regional partners and reactions by adversaries? Should the governments consider additional reassurance measures?
What approaches are Australia and Brazil taking to assure international and domestic audiences about nonproliferation, safety, and security? Are there risks that these programs could create precedents that could be used by other states as a cover for nuclear weapons activities? Are there decisions, actions, or behaviors that Australia and Brazil could adopt to prevent this? What are the risks inherent in the two countries’ different approaches to fueling their submarines? Both countries are undergoing yearslong negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to establish special procedures for verifying that the nuclear material used to fuel the submarines will not be diverted to illicit nuclear weapons activities. What do these separate processes indicate about best practices for achieving transparency and meeting verification requirements? Could these efforts establish norms or precedents for naval nuclear propulsion and perhaps also other future, nontraditional applications of nuclear technology?
Until now, SSNs have largely operated outside of traditional nuclear governance mechanisms because they have been a capability deployed only by nuclear-armed states. In addition to IAEA safeguards, should SSN programs by non-nuclear states be addressed in other international regimes? For instance, should the Convention on Nuclear Safety be amended to cover such programs? Given their potential to blur the lines between the use of nuclear technology for legitimate military purposes and illicit weapons purposes, do the programs align with nonproliferation norms? And how will Australia’s and Brazil’s SSN programs be situated in their respective nuclear-weapon-free zones? The free-zone issue in particular raises a number of normative, legal, procedural, and technical matters, which are explored more deeply in a companion volume to this publication.
As states without nuclear weapons develop nuclear-powered submarines, can NWFZ regimes adapt to manage new technical, legal, procedural, and normative challenges?
How are both countries planning to manage the long-term financial, human capital, and technological requirements of their SSN programs? What challenges will they face in sustaining these multigenerational programs through inevitable political and social changes? How will they establish and meet robust regulatory requirements, including balancing between civil and military oversight of the programs? How can they build social licenses to secure ongoing public support and buy-in? While both have leaned into economic and industrial development narratives, can they bring along local communities and oft-neglected voices from impacted communities where safety and environmental concerns are of the utmost importance? All of these factors are central to the responsible conduct of these programs.
Credentials of Responsible Stewardship
To more deeply examine these issues, researchers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in partnership with colleagues at the Australian National University, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, and State University of Rio de Janeiro, convened an expert dialogue on the global dimensions of naval nuclear propulsion.
In bringing together Australian, Brazilian, and international technical, policy, and legal experts, we put the Australian and Brazilian SSN programs in dialogue to increase mutual understanding of the challenges involved in safely and securely operating SSN programs and to facilitate an exchange of ideas on how to build national, regional, and international confidence in both programs.
In doing so, we aimed to encourage the development of a framework for the responsible stewardship of naval nuclear propulsion by non-nuclear states—one that could apply not only to Australia and Brazil but also to future states that may seek to develop SSN capabilities. The goal was not to develop a generic, prescriptive framework, not least because there is no established best practice. Rather, the goal was for the framework to be informed by Australian and Brazilian efforts to demonstrate their commitments to responsible stewardship to date, which implicitly recognize that SSN programs are different from other civil nuclear activities and that using nuclear technology for military purposes carries with it the need to take additional actions. These efforts create expectations for how Australia’s and Brazil’s programs should each be implemented, how future states would (or should) act, and how choices and behaviors around these programs might relate to additional nontraditional applications of nuclear technology.
The notion of “credentials” offers one way to think about the various elements of responsible stewardship. Such credentials, or attributes of responsible stewardship, could be tailored to the specific context of a particular state’s SSN program even while promoting common elements across programs, such as robust and transparent dialogue with the IAEA. For example, membership in a nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty; technical choices within a program that aim to minimize proliferation risks; and advanced preparations for the entire life cycle of an SSN program, including waste disposal, could all be considered important credentials of responsible stewardship of naval nuclear propulsion.
The credentials concept leaves open some important questions, including how the international community as well as domestic constituencies can best hold states accountable for pursuing such credentials in developing SSN programs. But it nevertheless offers a potentially useful framework for creating expectations around responsible stewardship, while recognizing the inherent differences between the Australian, Brazilian, and any future SSN programs.
The Compilation’s Chapters
The following chapters explore several areas and dimensions where Australia and Brazil are or could be establishing their credentials as responsible stewards of SSNs. The chapters build on discussions in the project dialogues and capture important Australian, Brazilian, and international perspectives.
Stephan Frühling begins by asserting that despite substantial differences in Australia’s and Brazil’s programs, they have the same fundamental strategic rationale: securing the capability to fight for sea control in great ocean basins. Both states have struggled, however, to effectively articulate this rationale, exacerbating the challenge of addressing both international and domestic concerns about their programs.
Benjamin Zala argues that the Australian discussion around the deterrence mission of its SSNs is missing consideration of how Australia can reassure its adversaries of its defensive intentions. Especially given the potential threat that China might perceive from Australia’s SSNs to its SSBNs, Canberra must find creative solutions to its SSN reassurance problem—or else risk undermining, rather than reinforcing, deterrence.
Layla Dawood explains the Brazilian deterrence mission, where SSNs will serve as a key defensive tool for deterring extraregional threats posed to Brazil’s vital interests in the South Atlantic. She argues that the development and bureaucratic narratives and history baked into the SSN program serve as a reassurance in and of themselves of the defensive nature of the program.
James Casterton offers a detailed overview of the international safeguards procedures, questions, and challenges raised by Australia’s and Brazil’s naval nuclear propulsion programs. He contends that while there is no one-size-fits-all safeguards approach, both countries, along with the IAEA, must adopt an approach centered on transparency to ensure that the international safeguards system remains viable in the face of evolving nuclear activities.
Australia’s and Brazil’s SSN programs occupy a normative gap in nuclear governance, Monica Herz asserts, a governance challenge only exacerbated by the erosion of multilateral and nuclear norms in the broader international system. Despite these challenges, Australia and Brazil have an opportunity to be norm entrepreneurs, to set expectations around transparency and trust-building for future nonproscribed and nontraditional uses of nuclear technology.
Veronica L. Taylor explores the concept of responsible nuclear stewardship in the context of the Australian approach to regulation. She argues that examining Australia’s regulatory approach, including the ways in which it encapsulates transparency and engagement beyond minimum legal requirements, offers a useful way to conceptualize responsible stewardship for naval nuclear propulsion—and perhaps also other future uses of nuclear material—by non-nuclear states.
Drawing on his experience in the UK Royal Navy, Mike Wareham introduces the concept of a social license and highlights the critical importance of securing ongoing approval and support for submarine programs by the public. He points to the UK example in identifying successful approaches for and key challenges to building a social license.
Mariana Nascimento Plum examines the challenges Brazil faces in building a social license for its dual-track nuclear program, which includes both civil power applications as well as the SSN program, amid a rapidly shifting nuclear landscape. She argues that Brazil has taken important steps in promoting the strategic autonomy and technical ambitions of the program but needs to balance those efforts with environmental stewardship and social inclusion.
Finally, Art Cotterell concludes by critiquing the very concept of a social license, arguing that the ambiguities around whose voices matter in building approval and support for Australia’s SSN program can problematically exclude key communities, including those who might be most directly impacted by the program. He contends that Australia must do more to foster genuine, public discussion or else risk eroding public trust.
The volume can be accessed here.
