News: AUKUS to boost Pacific deterrence sooner than expected, report finds

SYDNEY, July 29 (Reuters) - The benefits of the AUKUS nuclear powered submarine partnership would start to be seen in 2027, earlier than widely assumed, by boosting deterrence and increasing the number of submarines in the western Pacific able to respond to a crisis, a report said on Monday.

Under the AUKUS program, Australia, Britain and the United States will work to transfer a fleet of eight nuclear powered and conventionally armed submarines to Australia by 2050. With a $244 billion price tag for Australia over three decades, AUKUS gained U.S. approval to share sensitive technology in December.

Yet doubts have been raised about the practicality of Australia's most expensive defence project, the report by defence analyst Ross Babbage at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank said.

Many of the strategic benefits for regional deterrence kick in from 2027, when five nuclear powered submarines, with joint Australian, British and U.S. crews, begin routine operations from Australia to boost training, the report said.

By the middle of the next decade, AUKUS partners will have doubled the number of forward-deployed allied nuclear submarines that could operate in the first 10 days of a western Pacific crisis, it added.

The submarines based in Australia would reach a conflict theatre faster than those in Hawaii or San Diego, and are beyond Chinese missile range, unlike U.S. bases in Guam or Japan, it said.

The cost of the AUKUS program to Australia will average A$10 billion a year, lifting defence spending to between 2.5% and 3% of gross domestic product from 2%, which Babbage said was not high compared with Australia's historical defence spending, or the spending of its security partners.

Australia will buy up to three U.S. Virginia class submarines in the early 2030s, although a new class of Australian-built AUKUS submarine is not expected until early 2040.

"Because of AUKUS, the prospect of Australia needing to stand alone in the face of coercion or military attacks - a recurring nightmare since the Second World War - is now almost inconceivable," Babbage wrote in the report.