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31 May 2024

The AUKUS balancing act is not getting easier

Nick Childs

In the last twelve months, the three partners in the Australia–United Kingdom–United States (AUKUS) partnership have made significant strides in their core or Pillar 1 ambition to jointly create a nuclear-powered-submarine capability for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). That ambition includes combining to produce a new SSN-AUKUS submarine, derived from a UK design, that will also serve in the Royal Navy. There is also an increased focus on the so-called Pillar 2 effort to cooperate on a range of other advanced defence technologies. That has included opening the door ever so slightly to the prospects of cooperation with other countries, notably Japan. But, in many ways, all these activities have served only to underscore the scale of the challenges ahead.

Sub-optimal approachAUKUS is in many ways a giant balancing act between risk and strategic reward for all three countries. It is also a balance between seeking to add to Indo-Pacific deterrence and stability and not stoking further tensions. In addition, it is attempting to manage urgent defence and operational needs with long-term capability goals. And the partners need to ensure the huge budgetary demands of AUKUS do not suck up too much funding at the expense of other defence requirements.

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