John Kerin’s report on submarines shows how a single-issue perspective can be misleading in defence resource allocation (“Arms race lost without nuclear subs", March 6).
The logic for building 12 large conventional submarines here, of a scale never before attempted anywhere, assumes that nothing much else exists to carry out its primary roles. Submarines have profound disabilities, which show up particularly in Australia’s geo-strategic situation. Readers who try to understand what Australia obtains at the margin for $36 billion will be interested in the following statement by then defence minister
That minister then proclaimed: “This project will show the world what Australia can do if we set our minds to a task. The technological and industry spin-offs from a project such as this will reach across the entire nation." The debacle of the Collins-class submarine has already shown what Australia can do.
Einstein observed “any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex". The nation is not short of areas where the condition is less than adequate, yet Defence has $36 billion of “icing on the cake" in its budgets.
The Australian Financial Review