New Depths in Australia-US Relations: The Collins Class ...

Maryanne Kelton: New Depths 42rejected on 17 December, but on December 18, John Moore announced hisresignation. 229Confronted with a battle of some proportions to win the combat systemcontract, the US then had employed a fleet of tactics. Even Malcolm McIntosh andJohn Prescott (as appointed by Moore) had recommended that the project, with ahistory already damaged by flirtations with experimental technology, reject anyfurther pursuit of this. Instead, they recommended that the system of choice shouldutilise COTS, proven technology. Moreover, the Defence evaluation and acquisitionteams rated the Raytheon proposal as a lesser prospect. In order to counteract this,the USN and Defense Department sent high level representatives to Australia tofurther in their claims. The government thus was shortly confronted withperformance or alliance imperatives.New Minister, Peter Reith, together with bureaucrats from the Department ofDefence, toured the US to consider the American proposals. Although the formalrecommendations were delayed, Undersecretary for Defence Acquisition, MichaelRoche, the ADF's tender evaluation working group, source selection board andsubmarine capability team's preference was for the STN-Atlas system. This,however, was contested by the Navy's Chief of Navy, Vice-Admiral, DavidShackleton. Shackleton argued forcefully for the Raytheon system as it wasnecessary to enhance navy operational relations with the US. His concurrentconcern was that Australia had no comparable operational alliance with either theSwedish or German Navies and that US apprehension over foreign access to UStechnology may compromise existing arrangements and preclude Australianpurchase of future US technology. 230 John Moore too, regarded the technicalcooperation with the US and the ownership of the ASC as issues sitting heavily onthe procurement choices confronting Australia. 231 A deferral of the combat systemrecommendation from the Department of Defence to the Minister, gave the Australiangovernment, military and bureaucracy time to grapple with the exigencies of the issueand to ponder the storm warnings: and not only those of international origin.Co-operative development: and what of this scenario? Taiwan has been inthe market for at least six diesel attack submarines. Although it is possible that theASC with US capital could construct the boats, it remains a highly dubious politicalenterprise for Australia. This is particularly so as the Chinese Foreign Ministry hasstated that:(w)e hope, and are confident, that the Australian side will scrupulously abide by theone-China policy and by no means participate in the sale of weaponry to Taiwan inorder to avoid creating serious harm for Sino-Australian relations. 232Instead it seems that the two US nuclear submarine constructors are bargaining forthe contract. These were General Dynamics’ Electric Boat and Northrop Grumman’sNewport News. One of these tenderers recently had its diesel submarine technology229 Peter La Franchi, 'Sub Test for New Australian Minister', Defense Daily International, vol. 2, no. 6, 9February 2001, and Dennis Shanahan, 'Investigator called in over combat system deal', The Australian,1 January 2001, p. 8.230 David Shackleton has also stated that the ‘(d)efence industry exists to support the defence force andnational defence capability. The defence force does not exist to support defence industry’. See DavidShackleton, ‘Conference dinner speech’, in David Wilson, (ed.), Maritime War in the 21 st Century: TheMedium and Small Navy Perspective, RAN Sea Power Centre, Canberra, 2001, p. 281.231 Robert Garran, 'US navy out to torpedo rival bid for submarine combat system', The Australian, 22December 2000, p. 1. The Australian also weighed in on the argument with an editorial declaring thatthe 'Sub contracts must consider US alliance', 26 December 2000, p. 8.232 Lynne O’Donnell and Sid Marris, ‘Beijing warns on sub sales to Taiwan’, The Australian, 22 April2002, p. 7.