British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, speaks as President Joe Biden, center, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese listen at Naval Base Point Loma, Monday, March 13, 2023, in San Diego, as they unveil, AUKUS, a trilateral security pact between Australia, Britain, and the United States. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
When AUKUS — the trilateral security partnership between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia — was announced in September 2021, much of the public and media’s attention was fixated on the gossip surrounding the perceived ramifications of France’s omission. The specifics of AUKUS were left up in the air – that is, until last month when President Biden, Prime Minister Albanese and Prime Minister Sunak came together and announced a roadmap for how AUKUS would unfold. The whole triumvirate will design nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) for the Australian navy, to be built by Britain and Australia. In addition to the custom SSN-AUKUS being built for Australia, the United States plans to sell Australia three of its own Virginia-class SSNs starting around 2030. The most significant announcement regarding AUKUS, however, came last month when the United States announced its planned sharing of its SSN technology with its allies.
The press release from the White House on the roadmap for AUKUS notes, “For more than a century, our three nations have stood shoulder to shoulder… to help sustain peace, stability, and prosperity around the world, including in the Indo-Pacific… The steps we are announcing today will help us to advance these mutually beneficial objectives in the decades to come.” It is worth noting at the outset what this deal intends to do: to provide and maintain the support of a countering force to China’s ever-growing sphere of military influence in the Indo-Pacific. China’s naval force has been steadily expanding in the past decades and consequently, the nation has been growing more aggressive with its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
This is what makes the AUKUS agreement and the details of the deal so significant – SSN technology is imperative in any consideration of naval warfare. As Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute noted last month, “As some of the most survivable, lethal, and otherwise useful modern naval capabilities, submarines’ relevance to a strategic rivalry with China in the Indo-Pacific region is hard to exaggerate”. Fortunately, SSN technology is one area where the United States remains the undisputed leader.
The only problem lies in numbers/funding – Mike Sweeney in an essay for the U.S Naval Institute notes that the United States submarine fleet is set to shrink over the next several years, as newer Columbia-class SSNs are being built to replace the current Virginia-class ones. Additionally, the United States has deployments all across the world; the Pacific is just one of the many areas where we have a presence. China’s naval presence, on the other hand, remains relatively focused on its own immediate space: the Pacific. If a conflict were to break out in the Pacific, the United States would be at a big strategic disadvantage with its numerical difference to China’s comparatively concentrated naval presence.
Giving Australia access to SSNs can help alleviate this imbalance, removing the need to maintain sizable numbers everywhere. Sharing vital military secrets and technology no doubt carries a risk. But the United States would be better served working in unison with its allies, rather than going at it alone.