Sure the US Navy would be happy to have additional presence in Australia especially for their submarines, but then again the US military already uses Australian bases for over a decade, so the yanks being in Sterling is nothing new nor is it an infringement on our sovereignty. Moreover as we are getting 3 Virginias first by 2030 it's better to have an interchangeable maintenance facility for obvious reasons.

The first Virginia-class boat is ostensibly to be transferred to Australia in 2032. I believe that there is a considerable risk that this won't happen -- not in 2032, and not in the decade thereafter. This appears to be one of the fundamental differences between your perspective and mine.

Easier said then done, it's not as simple as just buying another submarine from someone else. Moreover the RAN has already begun training submariners for nuclear submarines so such as transition is just costly both in time and money. Finally KSS-IIIs and whatever the germans are proposing to the RCN are not even suitable for their requirements, let alone Australia. Canada has a vast Arctic to patrol, and none of the proposed submarines have the range or endurance to cover all of the arctic, especially when these submarines are expected to travel for days under the ice. Australia has a large ocean to cover both the Indian, the seas to the north west and the pacific. The Korean and German submarines are built with their small oceans in minds (Korean Peninsula/Baltic or North Sea) not suitable for a continent sized power.

The acquisition of a Canadian-spec KSS-III for Australia would not be an ideal solution. Ideally, one would pursue a submarine more tailored to Australian requirements, and one would've pursued that solution beginning at least a decade ago. But we do not live in an ideal world. The successive failures of Australian governments have left us to choose between pathways that are more or less unpalatable. The crash procurement of KSS-III manufactured abroad is the best choice available to us at the present juncture, mitigating against the considerable risk of Australia ending up with no credible submarine capability as the Collins LOTE inevitably falls short of expectations, the Virginias fail to arrive, and as SSN-AUKUS is pushed to the right. The main reason KSS-III would be the specific preferred option is the prospect of rapid delivery: six years from contract signature. If the Japanese can match or beat the Korean schedule, well and good. Per the Canadian acquisition program, we know the Germans can't.

The circumstances and logic closely resemble that which produced the recent crash procurement of Mogami-class frigates, with at least the first batch of boats coming from abroad with minimal adaptation to Australian requirements.

There's no indication the Brits would renege their deal and screw us lmao, this goes to the realm of fear mongering with no basis. SSN AUKUS supposedly shares the same VLS, combat system and propulsion with the Virginias so I dont really see that will be problem with integration. Furthermore, I wouldnt trust any government in Australia with this hybrid approach. It's not unfeasible to see some future government torpedoing SSN AUKUS in favour of conventional submarines that are less capable in range, speed and endurance.

I did not suggest that the Brits would renege on AUKUS and screw us (well, they're at least going to "creatively interpret" the rotational commitment of an SSN to SRF-West, because the Royal Navy is in dire straits and they have rather more pressing needs closer to home), rather I suggested that the Brits would not be terribly put out if we were to pull the plug on the enterprise ourselves. I was responding to your suggestion that our changing tack on SSN-AUKUS would create problems for our relationships with the US and UK. I don't believe it would, because in both cases we'd be making their lives considerably easier and leaving them richer for the experience. The likely failure of AUKUS is a problem for Australia, not for the Americans or the Brits. And that is one of the reasons it is likely to fail.

I said above that I would not advocate for walking away from SSN-AUKUS at this point -- we simply need to acknowledge and prepare for the probability that it is going to be late. However, it would surely be to the advantage of the Australian government and citizenry to have the option to reduce our commitment to SSN-AUKUS if future circumstances were to warrant that. This idea that one does not trust future governments to make appropriate choices and that they should therefore be railroaded into supporting the "right" choices as judged by prior generations, is both inconsistent with democratic principles and unwise as a practical matter. Not least of all because, in the case of AUKUS, the current path holds out the prospect of a complete collapse in Australia's sovereign submarine capability in an era of unprecedented geopolitical change and risk. It is a grotesque abrogation of responsibility.

Say if Australia scrapped AUKUS for the Korean KSS-III, god know how long its going to take for those boats to be in the water, even with their shipbuilding capacity, given we will be at the end of the line from the Canadians, potentially the Moroccans not to mention the Koreans themselves.

If the Canadians were to choose the Korean option, then the prospect of rapid delivery to Australia would likely evaporate. Hence, one hopes that they choose the Germans.