Western officials revealed the Biden Administration will look at an option of helping Australia plug its capability gap amid rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific region.
Western officials said the"first few boats" would be built in the United States to provide Australia with its first nuclear-powered submarines by the mid-2030s instead of the 2040s, which was the first estimated timeline.
The Biden Administration may look at building and supplying Australia with the first of its nuclear-powered submarines to plug a capability gap. Picture: POIS Yuri Ramsey/ADF via Getty Over a week ago, Defence Minister Richard Marles said the pathway and decisions of which boats to use and how they will built was"taking shape".“With AUKUS there’s a really huge opportunity beyond submarines of pursuing a greater and more ambitious agenda."
"The needs for this partnership is as clear today as it was a year ago," it read, also reconfirming it was not seeking to obtain nuclear weapons. Australia is set to choose either the US or British boat design but Mr Marles hinted it could be"trilateral" in nature - combining parts of both models.