The HMAS Stirling naval base in Western Australia is becoming increasingly important. Nuclear-powered submarines from the USA and Great Britain will soon be operating from there.
In two years, nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and Great Britain will be operating regularly from the Stirling base in Western Australia. Here is a boat from the American Los Angeles class on a previous visit.
Richard Wainwright / Imago
The Western Australian city of Perth is very far away for many Australians. The vast majority of the country lives on the Pacific coast from Brisbane to Sydney to Melbourne. The flight from the major cities there to Perth on the Indian Ocean takes four to five hours.
Accordingly, Australia sees itself as a country bordering the Indian Ocean little, write Professors Rebecca Strating and Joanne Wallis in her book «Girt by Sea»which deals with the maritime strategy of their country.
The authors list numerous reasons why their country should look more westward: Australia has the longest coastline of all the countries bordering the Indian Ocean, at 14,000 kilometers. Canberra is responsible for the largest maritime rescue zone in the ocean (which is why Australia is leading the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which has been missing for ten years). Australia also claims an exclusive economic zone of almost four million square kilometers in the Indian Ocean. There are lucrative offshore oil and gas fields there.
An important submarine base during World War II
Phil Spedding agrees that the Indian Ocean plays a minor role in the perception of the population and many Australian media. But the retired rear admiral of the Australian Navy adds: “This does not apply to politics and the armed forces. Since the 1960s, we have strategically viewed ourselves as a nation of two oceans.”
Spedding points out that the geostrategic importance of the country’s west coast was already clearly evident earlier. During the First World War, for example, the Australian troops who were fighting alongside Great Britain in Europe were embarked in Western Australia.
And Fremantle, the port city near Perth, was a huge submarine base during World War II. 170 American, British and Dutch submarines made a total of 416 patrols from here between 1942 and 1945. They sank more than 300 enemy ships.
American submarines lie close together in Fremantle harbor in 1945.
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Australia’s submarine base is located on the Indian Ocean
After Pearl Harbor, Fremantle was the second largest submarine base of the Allies in World War II. But Australia itself had no submarines at the time. It was not until the 1960s that the country built up its own fleet. The six submarines of the current Collins class are stationed at the HMAS Stirling base, which is located on an island around 20 kilometers south of Fremantle.
A large proportion of the Royal Australian Navy’s warships also have their home port here. Fleet Base West on the Indian Ocean is the counterpart to Fleet Base East in Sydney on the Pacific. The Navy thus wants to have an operational presence in both major oceans.
Stirling is set to become even more important: from 2027, four nuclear-powered US Navy attack submarines will operate from here. A British submarine will also be stationed here, at least temporarily. All of this is happening within the framework of Aukus, the trilateral security agreement that Canberra concluded with Washington and London three years ago.
“Stirling gives the Americans strategic depth,” says Troy Lee-Brown, a security expert at the Defence & Security Institute at the University of Western Australia. This would allow them to reach hotspots in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia more quickly, while at the same time being out of range of Chinese missiles that threaten alternative sites in Japan, the Philippines or Guam.
Today, the US Navy’s submarines operate from the Pacific island of Guam – far away from the Indian Ocean. From the base in Western Australia, it is still more than 3,000 kilometers to the important straits in Southeast Asia, such as the Sunda Strait near Jakarta or the Strait of Malacca near Singapore. However, an American Virginia-class submarine can cover this distance completely underwater in less than three days.
Australia will have to wait a long time for nuclear submarines
It will still be some time before Australia has its own nuclear-powered submarines. In the early 2030s, the Australian Navy is set to receive three Virginia-class boats from the USA. The actual Aukus submarine is being developed jointly with Great Britain and then built in Australia. These units will not be operational until the 2040s at the earliest.
Until then, the Australian Navy must learn how to operate and maintain nuclear submarines. Australian submariners are already being trained on American boats; in Hawaii, mechanics are learning how to maintain the complex systems. With the presence of American and British submarines in Stirling, the Australian Navy is gaining experience until its own units are ready for action.
On Friday, the USS Emory S. Land, a US Navy supply ship for nuclear submarines, arrived in Stirling. In the next few weeks A mixed crew of Americans and Australians will maintain an American nuclear submarine.
The chiefs of the Australian, American and British navies at the HMAS Stirling submarine base. A Collins-class diesel-electric submarine can be seen in the background.
Richard Wainwright / EPA
Nuclear submarines are significantly larger than the diesel-electric Collins-class boats currently used by Australia. The facilities in Stirling therefore need to be expanded. And accommodation is needed for the crews of the American boats. The project is complex and everything takes time. “The Sterling base was completed in 1978,” recalls Rear Admiral Spedding, “but it was another seven years before the first warships could operate from there, almost a decade for the submarines.”
Aukus interlinks the navies of the three countries
It is becoming apparent that the Stirling base will become Aukus’ informal headquarters. The agreement does not contain any commitment to mutual assistance and is not an alliance – Australia, on the other hand, has a bilateral defence agreement with the USA, and Washington and London are linked via NATO.
Nevertheless, Aukus is leading to closer integration of the three countries in defence. This became apparent at the Indian Ocean Defence and Security Conference in Perth in July. The naval chiefs of all three countries met at the two-day conference and also visited the Stirling base.
At two public panel discussions, Admiral Lisa Franchetti of the US Navy, First Sea Lord Ben Key of the Royal Navy and Vice Admiral Mark Hammond of the Royal Australian Navy made it clear that the sailors of the three countries would work more closely together under Aukus in the future. For example, trinational teams of mechanics will maintain the American and British nuclear submarines in Stirling.
It could even go further with the Aukus submarines that are to be jointly developed. These boats would be “crewed either by a British or an Australian crew, or very likely by a mixture of both,” said Briton Key: “Because by then we will be so integrated that it will almost be a natural extension of what we do.”
