Australia's submarine gamble: Why B-2 bombers cannot replace AUKUS
If AUKUS submarines arrive late or not at all, Australia has no credible Plan B. The B-2 bomber—often floated as an alternative—is neither available nor suitable. Understanding why reveals hard truths about middle-power deterrence.
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The Fleet That Isn’t
Australia has bet its strategic future on submarines it may never receive. The AUKUS agreement, announced with fanfare in September 2021, promised to deliver nuclear-powered attack submarines to a nation that had never operated them. Three years later, the pathway looks less like a highway and more like a goat track.
The Virginia-class production rate in American shipyards has never reached the contracted two boats per year. Since 2022, it has limped along at roughly 1.2 boats annually, creating a growing backlog of submarines procured but not yet built. Australia sits in the queue behind the US Navy’s own urgent requirements. The first SSN-AUKUS boat—based on a British design with American technology—is not expected until the early 2040s. For a nation increasingly anxious about Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific, two decades is an eternity.
This has prompted a question that defence planners in Canberra prefer to avoid: what if the submarines never come? And if they don’t, could Australia acquire B-2 Spirit bombers instead?
The short answer is no. The longer answer reveals something important about the nature of deterrence, the architecture of alliances, and the difference between capability and theatre.
Stealth and Circumstance
The B-2 Spirit is an extraordinary machine. Twenty aircraft remain operational, each capable of carrying 40,000 pounds of ordnance across 6,000 nautical miles without refuelling. The bomber’s radar cross-section approaches that of a large bird. It can penetrate the most sophisticated air defences on earth and deliver nuclear or conventional weapons with precision.
It is also, for all practical purposes, unavailable.
The United States has never exported the B-2. Not to Britain, its closest ally and partner in the original stealth programme. Not to Japan, which hosts American forward-deployed forces and faces the same Chinese threat. The reasons are not bureaucratic but fundamental. The B-2’s stealth coatings, radar-absorbent structures, and mission systems represent the apex of American military technology. Export would require congressional approval that has never been sought because it would never be granted.
Australia’s 2023 Defence Strategic Review explicitly ruled out acquiring the B-21 Raider—the B-2’s successor—calling it “not a suitable current option.” The review did not bother to mention the B-2 at all. Some capabilities are so obviously beyond reach that stating the impossibility would be redundant.
But suppose, for the sake of argument, that Washington experienced a collective change of heart. Suppose Congress approved the sale, Northrop Grumman agreed to support an Australian fleet, and Canberra found the money—somewhere between $15 billion and $40 billion for a minimal force of ten aircraft, depending on how one accounts for development costs already sunk.
Would this provide credible deterrence?
The Visibility Paradox
Deterrence operates through two distinct mechanisms: denial and punishment. Denial means convincing an adversary that their military objectives cannot be achieved. Punishment means threatening costs so severe that the objectives are not worth pursuing. Submarines excel at denial. Bombers excel at punishment. The distinction matters.
A nuclear-powered attack submarine lurking in contested waters creates what strategists call “uncertainty productivity.” The adversary knows the submarine exists. They do not know where it is. Every naval operation must account for the possibility that an SSN is watching, waiting, ready to sink surface ships or launch cruise missiles at land targets. This uncertainty compounds across time and space. It cannot be eliminated through reconnaissance or pre-emption. The submarine’s value lies precisely in its invisibility.
A B-2 bomber operates on opposite principles. Its value as a deterrent depends on the adversary believing it will be used. This requires visibility—exercises, deployments, public statements of intent. The bomber must be seen to be believed. But visibility creates vulnerability. An aircraft on the ground can be targeted. A base can be struck. The more an adversary knows about bomber operations, the more they can plan to neutralise them.
Australia’s geography exacerbates this tension. The continent’s northern air bases—Tindal, Darwin, Curtin, Learmonth—are being hardened and expanded, but according to ASPI, progress has been slow. These facilities would need to support not just Australian aircraft but visiting American bombers, which already rotate through under existing agreements. A dedicated Australian B-2 fleet would require specialised hangars, climate-controlled maintenance facilities, and a cadre of technicians trained in the aircraft’s notoriously demanding upkeep.
The B-2 requires approximately 50 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight. Its stealth coatings degrade in tropical humidity. Its mission systems require software updates that only American contractors can provide. Australia would own the airframes but remain dependent on Washington for everything that makes them work.
The Sovereignty Illusion
This dependency illuminates a broader truth about Australian defence strategy. The more sophisticated the capability, the more tightly it binds Australia into American-controlled supply chains, software systems, and regulatory regimes. AUKUS submarines will require American reactor technology, American weapons systems, and American training. B-2 bombers would require American everything.
The distinction between “owning” a capability and “accessing” it has become increasingly blurred. Australia already benefits from American extended deterrence—the implicit promise that Washington would respond to an attack on its ally. American B-52 bombers rotate through northern Australia. American submarines will soon operate from Western Australian ports. The question is whether Australia needs its own long-range strike platforms or whether access to American platforms suffices.
The answer depends on scenarios that Canberra prefers not to discuss publicly. What happens if the United States is distracted by a crisis elsewhere? What happens if Washington decides that defending Taiwan is not worth a war with China? What happens if an American president, facing re-election pressures, calculates that Australian interests are expendable?
These are not paranoid fantasies. They are the scenarios that keep Australian defence planners awake at night. The entire logic of AUKUS rests on the assumption that American commitment to the Indo-Pacific is durable. But durability is precisely what cannot be guaranteed. American strategic priorities have shifted before. They will shift again.
Submarines offer a partial hedge against this uncertainty. A submarine at sea is sovereign in a way that no other military platform can match. It operates independently, makes its own decisions, and cannot be recalled by a distant ally experiencing second thoughts. It is, in the most literal sense, a national capability.
Bombers offer no such independence. They require bases, which require host-nation agreements. They require tankers, which require air corridors. They require intelligence, which requires allied cooperation. A bomber force that cannot operate without American support is not a sovereign capability. It is an expensive subscription to American power.
Chronos and Kairos
The temporal dimension of this debate is often overlooked. AUKUS operates on what the ancient Greeks called chronos—sequential, measurable time. The pathway envisions rotational submarine deployments in the late 2020s, Virginia-class sales in the early 2030s, and SSN-AUKUS delivery in the early 2040s. Each phase builds on the previous one. Delays compound.
But strategic crises operate on kairos—the opportune moment, the sudden rupture that demands immediate response. Taiwan could face a blockade next year. The South China Sea could become a shooting gallery before Australia receives its first nuclear submarine. The mismatch between acquisition timelines and threat timelines is not a bug in defence planning. It is the central problem.
B-2 bombers, if they could be acquired, would not solve this problem. Delivery would take years. Training would take longer. By the time an Australian B-2 force achieved operational capability, the strategic environment would have transformed in ways that no one can predict.
The more honest assessment is that Australia has no good options for closing the capability gap in the 2020s. The choices are between bad (relying on American platforms that may not be available when needed), worse (investing in capabilities that cannot be delivered in time), and worst (doing nothing and hoping the threat does not materialise).
Industrial Realities
The economics of the B-2 alternative deserve scrutiny. Australia’s AUKUS submarine commitment will generate approximately 20,000 direct jobs over thirty years, with up to 8,500 at peak construction. This represents a deliberate industrial strategy—building sovereign capability not just in platforms but in the workforce and supply chains that sustain them.
A B-2 purchase would generate almost no Australian jobs. The aircraft would be built in America, maintained by American contractors, and sustained through American logistics chains. Every dollar spent on bombers would flow out of the Australian economy. Every skill developed would reside overseas.
This matters politically as much as economically. Defence spending is easier to justify when it creates domestic employment. The AUKUS submarine programme has been sold to the Australian public not just as a security investment but as an industrial renaissance. Shipyards in Adelaide. Training facilities in Western Australia. A generation of workers in high-skill manufacturing jobs.
Bombers offer none of this. They offer only capability—and capability of uncertain utility at that.
The Signalling Problem
There is a final dimension to consider: what message would a B-2 acquisition send?
To China, it would signal escalation. Australia would be acquiring a platform capable of striking the Chinese mainland—something that submarines, with their shorter-range cruise missiles, cannot credibly threaten. Beijing would respond with its own escalation, likely including more aggressive posturing toward Australian assets and interests in the region.
To the United States, it would signal desperation. An ally so anxious about American commitment that it seeks to duplicate American capabilities rather than integrate with them. This could undermine the very alliance cohesion that Australia depends upon.
To regional neighbours—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines—it would signal that Australia sees itself as a great power rather than a middle power. This perception could complicate the delicate diplomacy required to maintain regional relationships while strengthening the American alliance.
Submarines send different signals. They are defensive in character, oriented toward sea control rather than power projection. They threaten adversary navies, not adversary homelands. They fit within the existing architecture of allied operations rather than disrupting it.
The signalling value of capability choices is often dismissed as secondary to operational utility. This is a mistake. In peacetime—which is, after all, when deterrence operates—signalling is the primary function of military forces. What you can do matters less than what others believe you will do.
The Default Trajectory
Where does this leave Australia?
The most likely outcome is that AUKUS proceeds, slowly and expensively, while Australia hedges through other means. Long-range missiles—Tomahawks for surface ships, JASSM-ERs for aircraft—will provide some strike capability in the interim. American rotational deployments will demonstrate alliance commitment. Australian defence spending will continue to rise, though never as fast as the threat environment demands.
The B-2 alternative will remain what it has always been: a thought experiment rather than a policy option. Australia cannot buy what America will not sell. And even if it could, the purchase would not solve the fundamental problem: that deterrence in the Indo-Pacific requires capabilities that take decades to build, deployed against threats that could materialise tomorrow.
The honest conclusion is uncomfortable. Australia has made a bet on AUKUS that it cannot easily reverse. If the bet fails—if the submarines never arrive, or arrive too late, or arrive in numbers too small to matter—there is no Plan B that provides equivalent capability. There are only lesser alternatives, partial solutions, and the hope that American commitment endures.
This is not a counsel of despair. It is a recognition that middle powers face constraints that great powers do not. Australia cannot match Chinese military spending. It cannot match Chinese industrial capacity. It cannot match Chinese geographic proximity to the contested spaces of the Indo-Pacific. What it can do is make itself a more difficult target, a more valuable ally, and a more costly adversary.
Submarines serve this purpose better than bombers. They impose costs on adversary operations without threatening adversary homelands. They integrate with allied forces without duplicating allied capabilities. They build sovereign industrial capacity without creating strategic dependencies.
The B-2 offers none of these advantages. It offers only the illusion of independent power—expensive symbolism dressed in stealth coatings. Australia would do better to accept its constraints and work within them than to chase capabilities that remain forever out of reach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Could Australia actually buy B-2 bombers from the United States? A: Almost certainly not. The US has never exported the B-2 to any ally, and the aircraft’s sensitive stealth technology would require congressional approval that has never been sought. Australia’s own Defence Strategic Review ruled out acquiring even the newer B-21 Raider as “not a suitable current option.”
Q: How long until Australia receives its first AUKUS submarine? A: Under current plans, Australia will receive 3-5 Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s, with the first SSN-AUKUS boat—based on a British design with American technology—expected in the early 2040s. However, Virginia-class production is running at only 1.2 boats per year against a target of 2.0, creating significant delivery risk.
Q: What is the difference between deterrence by denial and deterrence by punishment? A: Deterrence by denial aims to convince an adversary that their military objectives cannot be achieved—submarines excel at this by creating uncertainty about where they are and what they can target. Deterrence by punishment threatens costs so severe that objectives become not worth pursuing—bombers excel at this through their ability to strike enemy territory.
Q: Why can’t Australia just rely on American bombers already deployed to the region? A: Australia does benefit from American bomber rotations through northern bases, but this creates dependency on American decision-making in a crisis. If Washington faces competing priorities or calculates that Australian interests are expendable, those bombers may not be available when needed. Sovereign capability provides insurance against allied abandonment.
The Quiet Arithmetic
In the end, Australia’s strategic choices reduce to a simple calculation. Submarines take twenty years to build but last forty years in service. Bombers can be delivered faster but create permanent dependencies. The threat from China is real but its timing is uncertain. American commitment is strong but its durability is unknowable.
No acquisition strategy can eliminate these uncertainties. The best that Australia can do is build capabilities that remain useful across multiple scenarios—capabilities that work whether America stays or goes, whether China attacks or merely threatens, whether the crisis comes in 2027 or 2047.
Submarines meet this test. Bombers do not. That is not because bombers lack military utility. It is because the specific bomber that Australia might theoretically want—the B-2 Spirit—is unavailable, and the dependency it would create would undermine the very sovereignty it purports to defend.
Australia’s future lies beneath the waves, not above the clouds. The question is whether the boats will arrive in time.
Sources & Further Reading
The analysis in this article draws on research and reporting from:
- ASPI Strategist on Northern Air Bases - Assessment of Australia’s air base hardening progress and vulnerabilities
- Congressional Research Service on Virginia-class Production - Detailed analysis of submarine construction backlogs and AUKUS delivery timelines
- Australia’s AUKUS Submarine Industry Strategy - Official government document outlining workforce and industrial base requirements
- USSC Report on Ground-Based Air and Missile Defence - Analysis of Australia’s homeland defence requirements
- Lowy Institute on AUKUS Economics - Economic analysis of the submarine programme’s costs and benefits
- Sea Power Centre on Deterrence by Denial - Australian naval doctrine on deterrence strategy
- Hudson Institute on Distributed Maritime Operations - Analysis of evolving naval warfare concepts relevant to submarine operations
