The Aukus pact has revealed its long-awaited plan that would make Australia the seventh member of an exclusive club of nuclear-propulsion states.
Aukus is, we’re told, a high-risk endeavour but one that will yield potentially high rewards in terms of Australia’s ability to defend its sovereign interests and shape the regional security environment. Indeed, it reflects Australia’s anxieties about the changing security environment in Asia, especially concerning a rising China, and its willingness to step into the role of a “regional power”.
China’s own naval capabilities are growing: the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is estimated to comprise 355 ships and this number is likely to expand to 420 by 2025 and 460 in 2030.
The announcement is important as it provides a roadmap for how the three states plan to manage some of the not insignificant challenges. Putting to one side the eye-watering projected cost of $368bn, three issues stand out: first, the need to prepare Australia’s military and civilian workforce for maintaining and operating nuclear-powered submarines. The second is how Australia will fill the so-called “capability gap” between the end of the Collins-class submarine’s shelf-life and the arrival of the new submarines.
The third is ensuring that the nuclear-powered submarines are a “sovereign capability”. This third challenge relates to an even bigger question about sovereignty: is Australia now tied to following the dictates of Washington?
On the face of it, the answer is no. Australia’s Aukus engagement is an act of sovereign decision-making, and politicians view this as a way of shoring up Australia’s security in an increasingly contested region.
Former prime ministers have publicly raised concerns about whether the submarines will be a sovereign capability, operable without the assistance of the US. And it appears that the submarines will rely on US personnel, at least initially. But Australian officials have sought to reassure the public on this point, emphasising that they will be fully under the command of Australia. The evolving threat environment is compelling these states to work together in increasingly sophisticated ways.
But the more complex answer is that Australia’s regional interests are becoming increasingly difficult to disentangle from those of the US. The US alliance should be viewed as a means for securing Australia, not an end, but there is a sense in some of the national security conversations that preserving the alliance is the end in and of itself.
Aukus reflects Australia’s abandonment of its traditional “pragmatic” approach to managing great power relations, defined by not having to “choose” between the US or China. Its choice is obvious, and it is relying on the US committing to the “integrated deterrence” approach that the Biden administration set out in its 2022 Indo-Pacific strategy.
Aukus further pushes Australia along a path that it was already on in terms of trying to anchor the US’s presence and leadership in the region as a way of securing its own interests. Preserving Australia’s autonomous decision-making capabilities within the alliance context will be the work of current and future leaders.
In some ways, the sovereign capability critiques miss the point. Australia is already deeply enmeshed within the US defence establishment. That ship has already sailed, so to speak.
Many of Australia’s procurements are either US-built or compatible with US systems. The decision to pursue nuclear-powered submarines in partnership with the US and UK should not be viewed in isolation, but rather in the context of a long series of decisions about where Australia’s security interests lie. Aukus reflects the enduring traditions in Australian national security; the search for security through relations with “great and powerful friends” – the UK and US – is hard-wired.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Australia is banking on the future political stability of the US and Washington’s ongoing support for the Biden administration’s plan to deliver submarines to Australia. In addressing the capability gap, the US intends to sell Australia three Virginia-class submarines, with the potential to sell up to two more if needed. The first would arrive in 2033, then one in 2036 and the third in 2039. The Collins class shelf-life had been expected to be extended until 2036, but some will need to operate until 2048. This part of the plan requires congressional approval.
We should not be surprised if there is pushback in the US about relinquishing submarines during a time of increased contestation to a sovereign state that will be making sovereign decisions, we are assured, about what to do with those capabilities. While some in Australia’s strategic elite have expressed concern about “a leftwing coalition” forming in Australia and weakening the US alliance, the risks of an isolationist Republican government coming to power in the US seem a more plausible cause for concern – especially given the broad support for the US alliance in Australia.
Canberra’s faith in Washington may very well be rewarded, but we should not assume that success is assured.
The flip side to this, though, is that Washington looks to be the biggest winner, especially any investment in US shipbuilding. For Aukus to work, the US will also need to ease tight export and intellectual property regulations that are designed to prevent sensitive defence technology from falling into the hands of a potential adversary.
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The longer-term plan is for Australia and the UK to operate new SSN-Aukus “state-of-the-art” submarines combining UK design with US technology. The states anticipate beginning work on building them in their domestic shipyards within a decade. The UK would deliver its first SSN-Aukus to the Royal Navy in the late 2030s, and Australia would deliver the first SSN-Aukus to the Royal Australian Navy in the early 2040s.
The other key question in terms of Australia’s sovereign capability is whether it’s able to operate two or even three different types of boat simultaneously.
Aukus signals Australia’s contribution to US-led “integrated deterrence”. But deterrence is tricky – it is psychological, and its effectiveness is difficult to measure. One is much more likely to know when deterrence hasn’t been effective.
It relies on the potential adversary being deterred – in this case, China.
If we take its strategic narratives on face value, Beijing views Aukus as part of a broader containment strategy. China is also running the line that it constitutes a “grave nuclear proliferation risk”, which, given its own submarine proliferation, status as a nuclear state and aggressive maritime actions, is laughably hypocritical.
But there is a reason China is leaning on this narrative: because other states in the region, notably Indonesia and Malaysia, have also expressed similar concerns.
That shouldn’t mean that Australia should simply wish away inconvenient views about its program. It should be sensitive to the nuclear non-proliferations concerns of others states in its region, which requires thinking outside the US alliance. To some degree this is already reflected in the public messaging, with the states committing to strict standards of non-proliferation of weapons-grade nuclear material and working closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency to fulfil their obligations.
Yet deterrence needs to be accompanied by reassurance, especially in relations with other partners in the region. Canberra cannot rest on the comfortable assumption that other states across Asia and the Pacific naturally accept that this is designed to contribute to “global security and stability”, rather than a move that potentially destabilises the existing regional security order.
This is where diplomacy will be just as important in shoring up Australia’s regional relationships and security interests.
