{"id":76850,"date":"2026-03-27T12:54:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T03:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/27\/australia-will-be-left-with-no-submarines-if-it-abandons-aukus-senior-defence-official-warns"},"modified":"2026-03-27T12:54:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T03:54:28","slug":"australia-will-be-left-with-no-submarines-if-it-abandons-aukus-senior-defence-official-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76850","title":{"rendered":"Australia will be left with no submarines if it abandons Aukus, senior defence official warns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Malcolm Turnbull asks defence department official what Australia would do if the promised Virginia-class and Aukus-class submarines don\u2019t arrive <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/live\/2026\/mar\/27\/tropical-cyclone-narelle-fuel-crisis-petrol-cost-of-living-inflation-iran-war-storm-anthony-albanese-angus-taylor-ntwnfb\"><strong>Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Get our <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl\"><strong>breaking news email<\/strong><\/a><strong>, <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/app.adjust.com\/w4u7jx3\"><strong>free app<\/strong><\/a><strong> or <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/series\/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl\"><strong>daily news podcast<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Australia will be left with no submarines if it abandons the Aukus deal with the US and UK, a senior defence official has warned, declining to publicly countenance an alternative plan if Australia\u2019s promised nuclear-powered fleet does not arrive under Australian command.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDefence has been directed to pursue Aukus and we are pursuing Aukus and that\u2019s our plan. I would not venture into the space about \u2018Plan B\u2019 or \u2018Plan C\u2019,\u201d defence department deputy secretary, Hugh Jeffrey, told a Sovereignty and Security Forum in Canberra on Friday.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/27\/australia-will-be-left-with-no-submarines-if-it-abandons-aukus-senior-defence-official-warns\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Malcolm Turnbull asks defence department official what Australia would do if the promised Virginia-class and Aukus-class submarines don\u2019t arrive Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news p&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":371,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,2346,43,1585],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-aukus","category-australia-news","category-australian-military"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/371"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76851,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76850\/revisions\/76851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}