RaymondPierreL3<p>Frank Yuan on <a href="https://aus.social/tags/AUKUS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AUKUS</span></a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/SSN" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SSN</span></a> Virginia class commits a number of grave errors when one’s reporting is to be seriously considered. </p><p>He confuses <a href="https://aus.social/tags/SSN" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SSN</span></a> with <a href="https://aus.social/tags/SSNB" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SSNB</span></a>, confounds platforms with weapon types, fails to disambiguate <a href="https://aus.social/tags/missions" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>missions</span></a> and <a href="https://aus.social/tags/capability" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>capability</span></a>, and that on top of it all disregards the independance of <a href="https://aus.social/tags/Australian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Australian</span></a> Statehood. </p><p>All of the above are symptomatic of the cherry-picking arguments put forward by anti-AUKUS commentators. Whether AUKUS is a good or bad thing for Australia is irrelevent in arguments based on obfuscation and excoriation of non-supporting facts in support of a predertermined and biased conclusion.</p><p>“ Those nuclear-powered submarines are they are particularly suitable for one task – sailing up close to a faraway adversary (*cough* China), patrolling near its coast, and hunting its submarines which carry nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. That sort of mission requires the speed and endurance quintessential to nuclear propulsion, which is why the AUKUS submarines are so expensive.</p><p>So those “Australian” submarines would threaten China’s ballistic missile submarines. And why does China have them? Same reason why America, Russia, France, and Britain have them – submerged and mobile, they are a back-up nuclear arsenal should your adversary knock out your land-based nuclear weapons first.” (Source: 11:20EST <a href="https://live.australiainstitute.org.au/2025/07/australia-institute-live-2/page/3/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">live.australiainstitute.org.au</span><span class="invisible">/2025/07/australia-institute-live-2/page/3/</span></a> )</p><p>Why would a reader cognisant of the above failings read any further. I did, but only because if an article is criticised it ought to be read in full. Lest he be labelled a propagandist, the Frank Yuan ought to do much, much better and present all the facts before drawing conclusions and imposing his bias on the readers. </p><p>I will not respond to the author’s argument because any defence wonk can see through them as I did (and I’m not a defence expert, just an somewhat informed and concerned citizen)</p><p>I expected the <a href="https://aus.social/tags/AustraliaInstitute" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AustraliaInstitute</span></a> to do a better job at editing these puff pieces out of their Live stream.</p>