Some highlights.
The strategic purpose of the new [Australian] submarines, according to the US Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Harry Harris, is to combine with the US fleet to attack the Chinese Navy and threaten China. Presentations to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (APSI) by a group of US Navy officers and US consultants in Canberra a year ago emphasized that it is US strategy to deploy the proposed new Australian Navy submarines for “strategic effect through offensive operations …by operating forward and up-threat.” Discussion during the presentations identified Russia as a “forward” target, as well as China. “Up-threat” was military jargon for preemptive attack.…
Several years on, the APSI papers reveal that Australian-American targeting of “Putin-Class submarines” extends, not only to China and Russia, but also to Vietnam and possibly Indonesia.…
A US Navy presentation of the flags of the attack submarine fleets in the Pacific and Indian Oceans indicates that much faster growth is planned for the submarine fleets of US allies – Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea – than for Russian allies – China, India, and North Korea.…
The “Vladimir Putin submarines” to which Abbott referred last week are currently operated by the Russian fleet based at Vladivostok. Russian built analogues and domestically modified designs of “Putin class” submarines are also operated by the Chinese and the Indian Navies. All are capable of launching nuclear-armed missiles, some by ballistic trajectory and some by cruise flight. According to a survey of Russian naval experts this week, all three submarine fleets now have the launch capability to strike the bases in Australia on which the US depends for warfighting in the southern hemisphere.
The Russian plan currently calls for six Borey-class attack submarines – three, the Yury Dolgorukiy, the Vladimir Monomakh (below, left) and the Alexander Nevsky (right) – are already operational. Each armed with 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles, the primary mission of these craft is to attack the continental US and US nuclear bases in the north western hemisphere. By the time all six are deployed in 2018, one is likely to target US bases in Australia. A new Australian submarine fleet moves this targeting up the probability scale from likely to certain.…
Gennady Nechaev, a military analyst at Vzglyad in Moscow, acknowledges that the extent to which Australia is a carrier for US military operations against China and Russia, makes it inevitable that Russia, China and India will deploy counter-measures, particularly against Pine Gap, in central Australia. In this essay Nechaev reviews the growth of Russian, Chinese and Indian aircraft carrier strike forces. He concludes that current Kremlin thinking favours investment in submarines over aircraft carriers. Indian and Chinese calculations are a little different.
Nechaev is sceptical that the Putin flotilla in the Coral Sea last November was accompanied by a submarine. The Russian Navy declines to comment. Nechaev is more confident that as Australian bases and weapons are expanded for new US strike strategy, they will be countered by Russia, China, and India.
Also, as the Putin submarines approach firing range, they will be undetectable. This is confirmed by evidence of recent failures by US, UK, Swedish and NATO submarine defence units to find Russian craft off the coast of Scotland, and within the Swedish archipelago.…
Expect vastly more military spending.
Dances with Bears
Putin Submarines Surround Australia Within Range Of US Bases – Ray Atomizes Australian PoliticiansDances with Bears
John Helmer
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