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The U.S. has joined with the U.K. and Australia to announce a replacement trilateral security partnership, the AUKUS, that aims to make sure that there’ll be enduring freedom and openness within the Indo-Pacific region, particularly to “address both the present strategic environment within the region and the way it’s going to evolve”, consistent with President Joe Biden. Two dimensions are significant: first, that it complements several pre-existing similar arrangements for the region, including the Five Eyes intelligence cooperation initiative, ASEAN and therefore the Quad, the last including India; and second, that it proposes to transfer technology to create a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia within 18 months. Australia has ratified the nuclear NPT and has vowed to abide by its tenets, notwithstanding the sensitive technology transfer implied within the latest proposal. Mr. Biden visited lengths to assure the planet that AUKUS was “not talking about nuclear-armed submarines. These are conventionally armed submarines that are powered by nuclear reactors. This technology is proven.” Australia will become only the second nation, after the U.K., that the U.S. has ever shared its nautilus technology with. The announcement of the partnership led to a minor kerfuffle with New Zealand, whose Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that under her country’s 1984 nuclear-free zone policy, Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines wouldn’t be allowed into the former’s body of water . It also seemed to upset the political leadership in France, with whom Australia had struck a deal — now cancelled — for $90 billion worth of conventional submarines.
The broader strategic question that the creation of AUKUS begs relates to the unstated challenge that the group poses to the regional hegemonic ambitions of China, particularly regarding how far the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, along side other regional powers, will go, to preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific, including the South China Sea. Will the operationalisation of this security partnership cause closer coordination among the nations concerned in terms of joint military presence, war games and more within the region, signalling a replacement , “latticed” posture to Beijing? in any case , undersea capabilities including the power to patrol could also be vital to deterring Chinese military coercion within the region. Although no explicit mention was made from China in any of the AUKUS announcements, it’s clear, together official later said to media, that the transfer of propulsion technology to an ally during this context was intended to “send a message of reassurance to countries in Asia”. Whether or not the aim of AUKUS is to contain China’s aggressive territorial ambitions, the imperatives of the Indo-Pacific would be better served by broadening strategic cooperation initiatives of this type to incorporate other powers that are deeply invested within the region, including India, Japan, and South Korea .
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