Australia’s decades-long battle to acquire a new French-designed attack submarine to replace its aging Collins class fleet bears all the hallmarks of a bureaucratic boondoggle.
The Attack-class submarine project, initially estimated to cost A$20 billion to A$25 billion (US$15.6 billion to US$19.5 billion at the current exchange rate), had by 2016 doubled to A$50 billion, and almost doubled again to A$90 billion by February last year.
