Ghost Sharks’ mines won’t be much use if Australia can’t act fast enough
So now it’s confirmed: Ghost Shark uncrewed submarines will be able to lay mines, up to 12 at a time.
But government confirmation of the capability on 19 October leaves an uncomfortable question unanswered: does Australia have the political, legal and operational protocols to lay mines before an adversary strikes, or would it hesitate until hostile warships and submarines had already passed through the obvious place for mining, the archipelago to our north?
A mine deters only if an adversary believes it will be laid in time. An adversary of Australia may reasonably wonder whether Australian intelligence, readiness and political decision-making can move fast enough.
The Ghost Shark is being developed by Anduril, the Defence Science and Technology Group and the Royal Australian Navy. Submarines of the design can conduct persistent undersea missions without exposing crews and lay mines covertly from launch points an adversary cannot easily watch. Mines are no substitute for surveillance, submarines, maritime patrol aircraft, surface combatants or allied intelligence, but they can add strongly to maritime denial.
Reach is the harder problem. Correctly assessing in a September 2025 Strategist article that Ghost Sharks could lay mines, Sam Goldsmith and ASPI staff read Anduril’s claimed ‘multi-thousand mile range’ as at least 3,200 km. But they also estimated a cruising speed of only 3 to 4 knots, to conserve battery energy.
At that pace, a 1,600 km outward transit would take about 1.5 weeks; if the design reach and intended deployment radius are rather longer, as they well may be, the deployment duration also will be. It would be very difficult for Australia to employ a Ghost Shark at such distances unless a launch vessel were already positioned in the region or the uncrewed submarine could operate from the territory of a consenting US ally. Both options must be arranged well before a crisis, and a launch ship in contested waters would be exposed to attack.
Geography compounds this. Australia’s northern approaches run through the Indonesian archipelago and across the Timor and Arafura seas. Mines work best at choke points, where an adversary’s vessels must pass. Once hostile forces are through, the threat disperses across a far larger area. Submarines are hardest of all to deal with in open seas: once contact is lost, commanders cannot assume where they will next operate. Mines laid closer to home are as likely to obstruct Australia’s own navy, fuel imports and trade as they would obstruct the enemy.
Yet the choke points that matter most lie in or beside neighbours’ waters, and Australia cannot treat them as unrestricted operating areas. Mining would obstruct Indonesia’s seaborne trade and shipping of other countries that normally passes through the straits.
The law of naval warfare bars belligerents from mining neutral waters, requires minefields to be recorded and notified, and protects neutral navigation. Forward mining depends on diplomacy and partner consent as much as on hardware.
Warning is the next constraint. An attack rarely follows a declaration of hostile intent. Australia must fuse diplomatic, economic, cyber and military signals (unusual mobilisation, changed naval deployments, coercive demands, attacks on critical infrastructure) and judge when they mark a shift from coercion to preparation for war. Strategic warning may give months, operational warning much less. Tactical warning may come too late for any preventive denial, particularly for a vessel that needs well over a week to reach its operations area.
Then there is authority. The public does not know what plans, rules of engagement or defined thresholds govern autonomous mining, and that does not mean none exist. But government should be able to say, without revealing operational detail, who authorises mining and at what level of crisis; how peacetime preparation differs from wartime laying; whether mines can be laid inert and activated later; and how Australia would coordinate with Indonesia and protect civilian shipping. Depending on where and when it occurs, mining could itself be read as a major escalation. Autonomy delivers the mine without a crew. It does not relieve ministers of the decision.
There is also a gap between sword and shield. As Andy Perry argued in The Strategist last month, Australia’s mine countermeasures force has fallen from six Huon-class minehunters to two, both old. The navy itself calls the capability minimally viable. An adversary can mine too, and a navy that cannot clear re-seeded approaches cannot guarantee its own freedom to manoeuvre.
The aim should be to have credible, lawful and proportionate denial options ready before a crisis becomes unmanageable. That requires publicly accountable governance of maritime mining; crisis decision procedures that are tested, not assumed; prearranged operation-launch options with consenting partners; stronger maritime domain awareness; interoperability with allies; and exercises that rehearse warning failure and compressed timelines. Parliament should seek assurance that Defence has assessed the cost of delayed authorisation.
The decisive question is whether Australia will recognise the warning signs, make the decision and have its defences ready before a potential adversary reaches our shores.
About Author
