Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he believed he could secure bipartisan political backing in the US for a deal to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday he was positive that a US deal to deliver nuclear powered submarines to Australia was on track.  "I am very confident and spoke with their Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last night," said Albanese to the media.  Austin and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken are in the northeastern Austalian state of Queensland for the annual Australia-US Ministerial Meeting (AUSMIN) dialogue , focusing on the progress of the submarine deal, regional security and clean energy.  Republicans oppose submarine sale  The AUKUS pact, first announced in 2021, is a security alliance between Australia, the US and the UK.  As per the deal, the US is expected to sell three US Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. Blinken and Austin are discussing the deal with Albanese and other Australian officials on Friday and Saturday.  Meanwhile, 25 US Republican lawmakers wrote to the US President Joe Bidenthat the submarine sale to Australia would "unacceptably weaken" the US fleet as there is no clear plan to replace them.  Despite this, Albanese expressed confidence about the deal because of the discussions he had with Republicans and Democrats during the NATO summit in Lithuania earlier this month.  He said he was struck by their unanimous support for the US-Australia relationship, which he said has "never been stronger."  Australia to invest in AUKUS deal  As part of the AUKUS deal, Australia has agreed to invest $3 billion (​​€2.7 billion) in the US submarine industrial base.  "There is pressure on the American industrial base. We've well understood that. That's why we'll be making a contribution to it," said Australia's Defense Minister Richard Marles in an interview to Sky television on Friday.  He added that the deal is advantageous to all three parties because Australia will develop an industrial base that will add to the net capability of all three countries.  The AUKUS deal is expected to cost Australia up to $2 billion (​​€ 1.8 billion) over a period of 30 years. Security allies to discuss China amid tensions  Australia is currently reshaping its defense forces in response to China's military build up and plans to boost its long range strike capabilities and domestic missile production.  The US and Australia will also discuss China's security ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region at the AUSMIN summit.  Lloyd Austin said that both Australia and the US were worried about China's attempts to depart from international law. He added that Washington will defend its allies against China's "bullying behavior" in the Pacific.  Ahead of the meeting with Austin, Australia's Defense Minister Marles emphasized that this is the time to be working with allies and "Australia has no better friend than the United States of America." Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong also told the media that the US is "indispensable to the balance in the region."

PM Modi will sign acquisition of 26 Rafale-Marine fighters for INS Vikrant and 3 additional Kalveri class submarines to be built at Mumbai's Mazagon Dockyards. The Indian Navy will add more teeth to its already formidable arsenal in the coming years with Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected to sign a deal for acquisition of 26 Rafale-Marine fighters for the INS Vikrant aircraft carrier and a repeat order for building three more Scorpene (Kalveri) class submarines at Mazagon Dockyards Limited (MDL) through the “Make in India” route during his two-day visit to France this week, people familiar with the matter said. The Indian Navy will add more teeth to its already formidable arsenal in the coming years with Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected to sign a deal for acquisition of 26 Rafale-Marine fighters for the INS Vikrant aircraft carrier and a repeat order for building three more Scorpene (Kalveri) class submarines at Mazagon Dockyards Limited (MDL) through the “Make in India” route during his two-day visit to France this week, people familiar with the matter said. Source: Hindustan Times

An MoU to cooperate in submarine production was inked between defence shipyard Mazagon Docks (MDL) and German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) on Wednesday, as a precursor to submission of a bid for the over Rs 42,000 crore project to build six diesel-electric submarines for the Navy. The “non-binding and non-financial” MoU was inked in the presence of visiting German defence minister Boris Pistorius, who on Tuesday had said that TKMS was in “a good place in the race” for the submarine-building programme that could become a “flagship project” in India-Germany defence ties. “As per the MoU, TKMS will contribute to the engineering and design of the submarines as well as the consultancy support for this joint project. MDL, in turn, will take responsibility for constructing and delivering the submarines,” an official said. Spanish firm Navantia and South Korean Daewoo are the other foreign contenders in the competition for the `Project-75 India’ project, which was first granted “acceptance for necessity” by the Indian defence ministry way back in November 2007. The P-75I was supposed to be the first project under the “strategic partnership” policy promulgated in May 2017, but has been dogged by huge delays. Under the global tender finally issued in July 2021, MDL or the private Larsen & Toubro shipyard will be selected to build the six stealth conventional submarines, with both land-attack cruise missiles and air-independent propulsion (AIP), with foreign collaboration. The commercial-technical bids now have to be submitted by August 1 after several extensions. French and Russian companies are out of the race because they do not have submarines with operational AIP, which extends the underwater endurance of diesel-electric submarines, as earlier reported by TOI. It will take almost a decade for the first such submarine to roll out after the contract is eventually inked. Apart from the six new French-origin Scorpene submarines, constructed under the over Rs 23,000 crore `Project-75’ at MDL, the Navy is grappling with just six old Russian Kilo-class and four German HDW submarines in its conventional underwater fleet. China, incidentally, has over 50 diesel-electric and 10 nuclear submarines. It is also supplying eight new Yuan-class diesel-electric submarines with AIP to Pakistan.