Australia's New Plan For $1.7 billion For Fleet Of Autonomous Submarines

Asia-Pacific

Australia is betting on autonomous undersea mass to hedge against the long timelines of its nuclear submarine ambitions. If you know me personally, you know how much this saga irks me. Australia has a habit of fumbling military purchases and this could be the biggest of them all – yet it seems the Government is thinking proactively as it looks to learn from the war in Ukraine. In September 2025 Canberra committed A$1.7 billion (US$1.1 billion) to a fleet of extra-large "Ghost Shark" attack drones that officials said would supplement plans for nuclear-powered submarines. Built by Anduril in Sydney, the first was delivered to the Royal Australian Navy in January 2026 under a five-year contract. Al Jazeera reported that Defence Minister Richard Marles cast the vehicles as building a "more capable and more lethal navy" across intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strike.

Ghost Shark is unlikely to be the last such purchase. Pravda Australia reported that Israel Aerospace Industries is actively promoting its Blue Whale unmanned underwater vehicle on the local market, designed for reconnaissance, data collection and detection of underwater objects. The pitch is that it could scout ahead of crewed submarines on Australia's northern approaches and in the South China Sea, loitering for weeks to track ships and survey the seabed for mines. IAI delivered a Blue Whale to the German Navy in February 2026 after Baltic Sea trials, and while no Australian contract has been signed, existing defence ties make Canberra a plausible customer.

The recent focus on autonomous vehicles comes from the complicated delays with the submarine deal. Yes, that submarine deal is Australia's A$368 billion, three-decade commitment to acquire and build nuclear-powered submarines with the US and Britain. The first boats are not due until the 2030s, and under a revised arrangement that Australia will now buy three secondhand Virginia-class submarines rather than the mix originally promised, a change attributed to US shipyards being unable to build fast enough. The Pentagon later endorsed the pact after a five-month review as aligned with President Trump's "America First" agenda. (You can find our previous articles on this).

That gap explains the appeal of attritable autonomy, and here the lessons of the Black Sea are explicit. Ukraine has neutralised roughly a third of Russia's Black Sea Fleet with unmanned surface vessels, forcing much of the navy to retreat from occupied Crimea. Those systems are surface craft rather than submersibles, a distinction worth preserving, but the underlying lesson transfers: cheap unmanned mass can impose disproportionate cost on expensive platforms. Analysts note this shift is now feeding into fleet design and doctrine worldwide, raising questions about the survivability of traditional warships.

The direction of travel is clear. Ghost Shark and Blue Whale are the subsurface expression of a shift Ukraine accelerated on the surface, with Vice Admiral Mark Hammond warning the undersea battlespace will grow increasingly congested and contested. For a country with a vast coastline and a small population, this is a must have in a world of growing geopolitical uncertainty.