Shonky,

I was responding to Hassy and his call for a nuclear get em' first strike idea, he said; "The best defense against aircraft & missiles we can afford is a strong nuclear armed missile force to use as a deterrent" I assume the "we" is Australia, although Hassy could be categorised as a sycophantic traitor to a foreign power with his belief in all things Yankee! He is a trigger happy soul with calls for nuclear obliteration of millions. You may agree, war mongering is what the Coalition and their supports do best.

Pauliar,

Firstly, nuclear-powered subs are primarily defence orientated in that invading Aus would be very difficult if one could not protect the ships used for invasion.

Secondly, Hassy was not advocating a first-strike strategy, but either your mendacity or stupidity misinterpreted it that way.

Finally MAD is an effective defence strategy which is why North Korea, Pakistan, Israel etc spent such a huge amount achieving a nuclear deterrence.

"Firstly, nuclear-powered subs are primarily defense orientated in that invading Aus would be very difficult if one could not protect the ships used for invasion."

I don't think we should get ourselves embroiled in the rest of the worlds problems that an AUKUS defense pact can potentially bring.
- But I have no real issue in taking steps to prevent our country from ever being invaded.

War is changing, the future is in drone warfare.
You can take out a million dollar tank with a 10k drone.

Russians destroy Ukraine Army's self-propelled gun | Onslaught of drone attacks since October
http://youtu.be/9kQfLtoZHtg

What we should be thinking about, is will China leave us in peace for the next 18 years before we actually get the first of these submarines. Lots of things can happen in that time, and I see no evidence that Australia is prepared for any of it, or that we ever will be prepared for any of it. We have been run by self-serving idiots for too long.

ttbn,

After pressure from the US and UK, Aus has conceded that the subs need to be built overseas. This will drastically reduce the total cost and reduce the delivery time.

AC,

I see you are still desperately clinging to the belief that Russia is winning the war in Ukraine. Since we first started discussing this Russia was routed in Kharkiv and massively defeated in Kherson. Even now after about 5 months of massive attacks against the heavily defended Bakhmut Russia has lost 1000s of soldiers and much equipment while Ukraine is now getting close to encircling Kremina.

Russia's economy is beginning to implode. The oil price cap will be coming in and Russia's revenue is dropping while the costs of the war are mounting. Thousands of wives and mothers of "mobilised" men are protesting as 1000s of them are killed on the front lines.

SM

That's good news.

In the meantime, Jim Nolan reckons that the the UK and US will have quite a few nuclear subs in the area from next year on - training Australian crews, and just being around.