Vincent J. Curtis
14 Aug 2025
NOTCANZ, elsewhere known as AUKUS, (for Australia, United Kingdom, United States) is a military alliance within the Anglosphere that does not include Canada or New Zealand. It was organized for the purpose of transferring US nuclear submarine propulsion technology to the Royal Australian Navy. Its wider purpose was to counter increased Chinese presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Something nuclear is a new departure for Oz. The settled policy of Australia since Hiroshima was to shun nuclear power technology, and there have never been nuclear power electric generators in Australia. The country has no means of dealing with nuclear waste. By contrast, Canada was an early world leader in the development of peaceful nuclear power, with the first CANDU reactor in service in 1962. The nuclear reactor at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON, has since 1959 supplied the world with medical radionucleotides. But the political powers in Oz wanted nothing to do with nuclear technology.
The NOTCANZ saga began when Australia started looking for replacements for their Collins class diesel-electric submarines, which had been built in the 1990s by Kockums, a subsidiary of Saab. The Australians turned to the French, and ordered a dozen of the French Barracuda class submarines, which are nuclear powered, but Oz wanted them with conventional diesel-electric propulsion; these were to be called the Attack class.
This complication caused delays and cost overruns that had the Australians worried. Despite assurances from President Macron himself about the rapid fulfillment of the contract, the Australians suddenly dropped the contract, and embraced an offer for US nuclear propulsion technology for the new fleet of Aussie subs. The cry of “maudit anglais” could be heard from Paris to Canberra, and the Australians paid the French some US$584 million to settle the cancellation.
Aussie submariners had worked aboard US nuclear powered subs, and were absolutely sold on the superior capabilities of nuclear propulsion for the task in view, namely the countering of Chinese presence in the Indo-Pacific region, a strategic end that happily coincided with American strategic policy. Going with American technology had strategic advantages to the RAN: one being it would strengthen the strategic alliance between the RAN and the USN generally, and especially for the end of countering China; another lying in the difference between French and American nuclear propulsion technology.
American nuclear propulsion technology calls for the uranium to be enriched to the level of 93 percent, whereas the French technology utilizes uranium enriched only to the 6 percent level. The higher American enrichment enables the reactors to run for the life of the submarine, making refueling unnecessary; the lower enrichment of the French technology requires refueling after ten years service. Because Australia has no means of dealing with the nuclear waste from refueled nuclear submarines, any jump to nuclear propulsion would favor an American option. And so, on September 21, 2021, AUKUS was born.
The two Pillars of AUKUS are (1) the acquiring by Australia of nuclear powered attack submarines, the AUKUS class, and the rotational basing of US and UK nuclear powered subs in Australia; while (2) entails “the collaborative development of advanced capabilities in six technological areas: undersea capabilities, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, autonomy, advanced cyber, hypersonic, and counter-hypersonic capabilities, and electronic warfare; and two broader functional areas: innovation and information sharing.”
Then, in June 2025, just like that, the United States Department of Defense launched a review whether to scrap the AUKUS agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom.
As we’ve seen, the US is falling behind in deliveries of nuclear subs for its own fleet; the capability of delivering AUKUS class boats may not be there; and the US will not deprive itself of nuclear subs in order to fulfill a commitment to another country, no matter how close an ally.
There is a diplomatic opening for Canada
here. It is to acquire French Barracuda class subs, with the prospect of
leveraging a closer military and diplomatic alliance with France,
counterweighting our dependency on the US.
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