"‘This will make us weaker’: Army restructure faces backlash"see following Sept 28, 2023 article https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/this-will-make-us-weaker-army-restructure-faces-backlash-20230928-p5e8br.html
Pete Comment
My estimate of a A$Half Trillion (over 30 years) required for Australia’s future AUKUS submarine purchases is at the expense of less money for Australia’s Army (causing it to shrink).
However, Trump (on the advice of the US Navy) may well cancel the Virginias for Australia. Trump is increasinly likely win the 2024 elections (the betting odds today are Trump 2.60 to Biden's 3.00). Biden's chances are in free fall. Instead Australia may need to wait for a joint build of Australian SSN-AUKUS subs in the 2040s-2050s.
Whatever the AUKUS partners are claiming now, the cost of Australian SSN-AUKUS's only make sense if they are seen as Australian SSGNs equipped with nuclear weapons. Australia, after all, only has a very small defence budget compared to the other nuclear submarine owning countries (see SIPRI Table 1.). Those countries (see this very useful wiki site) are all great powers (UK, France, India, Russia) or super powers (US, China).