In response to French Anonymous' 2. comment and Anonymous’ comment on February 25, 2024. on what I call the
In general the end of the
(first) Cold War “peace dividend“ 1988-2001 led to a reduction in “white Western” European, US (see SSNs laid up), UK and Australian naval ship building as
well as lower defence spending overall. Defence electronic industries, including
those relevant to submarines, continued to expand, even during War on Terror (WoT) “9/11” 2001
to the 2020s. Perhaps most effected from 1988 and much of the WoT was “white
Western” high precision welding training and work that is essential for
submarine pressure hulls and reactors. Submarine funding reduction led to far fewer
SSN launches and consequent sharp downturn in welder training even in the US.
In the 1990s the a “white Western” ideology grew of downsized government technical training and instead a tendency to hire private sector supplier/contractors. Governments relied on buying labour “top dollar” to tied over a semi-employed, limited contract, labour market.
Meanwhile Northeast Asian
naval shipbuilding was far less impacted by the peace dividend as there was (and is) a
continuous build submarine arms race between China versus Japan and South Korea
(SK). Large scale building of naval and civilian surface ships also kept
welders continuously employed in Northeast Asia. These countries trained welders
at a higher tempo with very long contracts and even jobs for life.
In
“white Western” batch building temporary contracts with considerable downtime can lead to
loss of welding skills. The UK and France in particular saw long multi-year gaps
between the end of their SSBN building projects and full resumption of their new
SSN (Astute and Barracuda) building phases. Corporate memory in nuclear construction
skills was lost.
All this is impacting the
tempo of current SSN and SSBN construction in the UK, France and US. France is
trying to improve nuclear welder availability with HEFAÏS’ https://hefais.fr/ . HEFAÏS’ is a high-level industrial school “whose
ambition is to train the best welders in France for the nuclear and naval
sectors.” This is to meet the nuclear naval (submarines and the Charles de
Gaulle carrier replacement) and civilian nuclear welder shortages in France.
Australia launched its last submarine (an SSK) in 2001. So it will be more than 4 decades when Australia will attempt to start much
larger, more complex and unforgiving SSN-AUKUS’ construction from around 2045.
Also in Australia many
of the best technicians and engineers are working where there is more money and
(even better) constant work in the non-batch building, non-shipbuilding electronics
sectors in Australia and overseas. Young welders might prefer not to chance
their careers in Australia as surface shipbuilding continuity here is a highly
political, uncertain, and occurs in just 2 relatively isolated states of
Australia.
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On another matter - it is
interesting that the possibility is being floated in France of building a 7th and
even an 8th Barracuda SSN - but for the French Navy. Presumably these would be to
face the increasingly perceived (second Cold War) Russian threat to France. French and Russian SSBNs have increased their operational tempo - all requiring more French SSN activity. This further reduces
any chance France could build Barracuda SSNs for Australia. France also needs to shift
to building 4 x 3G SSBNs (SNLE 3G in France) as soon as possible.