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1. Deterrence and alliance power: Why the AUKUS submarines matter and how they can be delivered

Author:
Ross Babbage
Publication Date:
07-2024
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
Significant progress has already been made in the program to deliver advanced nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. The AUKUS partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom is well placed to deliver on its objectives in a reasonable timeframe. A largely unrecognised near-term benefit of AUKUS is that Australia will host up to five allied nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) within three years. These jointly crewed submarines will make a significant contribution to joint deterrence and theatre defence. By the mid-2030s, the AUKUS partners will have more than doubled the number of forward-deployed allied SSNs that can be operational in the critical first ten days of any Western Pacific crisis or conflict. Personnel expansion for the Royal Australian Navy will be one of the greatest challenges for the AUKUS program. Nevertheless, provided that upskilled Australian engineers and technical specialists are supplemented by British and American experts, this task will likely prove manageable.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Navy, Alliance, Deterrence, AUKUS, and Nuclear-Powered Submarines (SSNs)
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Australia, and United States of America

2. Raising AUKUS’s Second Pillar: Integrating Uncrewed and Other Emerging Technologies into the Australian Defence Forces

Author:
Bryan Clark and Dan Patt
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is aggressively pursuing a diverse array of uncrewed air, surface, and undersea systems to address capability gaps in today’s force and exploit emerging opportunities in new technology. Thus far, these efforts have yielded a few programs that have transitioned into operational use, consisting predominantly of uncrewed air vehicles (UAV) that support intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations. ADF concepts tend to constrain uncrewed system use cases by treating them as extensions of crewed platforms or units, such as the Royal Australia Air Force (RAAF) Ghost Bat program.1 These manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) concepts generally exploit the systems-level characteristics of uncrewed vehicles to provide crewed units with greater reach or persistence, as figure 1 summarizes. Because they do not carry human operators, strategists can consider even relatively expensive uncrewed vehicles attritable, and forces may lose these vehicles to combat or other exigencies with little regret.2 Uncrewed systems can operate for extended periods in severe environments or circumstances, such as space. And without human operators, uncrewed vehicles can be less expensive than their manned counterparts due to fewer requirements for life support, protection, live training, or multi-mission capability.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Science and Technology, Armed Forces, Alliance, and AUKUS
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Australia, and United States of America

3. AUKUS A Look Back at The First Analyses

Author:
David Santoro, Bruno Tertrais, Ashley Townshend, Brad Glosserman, and Robert Ayson
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Pacific Forum
Abstract:
Announced just over a year ago on Sept. 15, 2021, the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) security partnership promised work on two interrelated lines of effort between the three allies. One entailed providing Australia with a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability. The other involved cooperation on developing and providing joint advanced military capabilities to promote security and stability in the region, including in cyber, artificial intelligence and autonomy, quantum technologies, undersea capabilities, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic systems, electronic warfare, and information sharing. AUKUS sent shockwaves across the Indo-Pacific and beyond. Some praised the new partnership, explaining that it would tighten the US hub-and-spokes alliance system and stand as a powerful deterrent to China’s new assertiveness in the region. Others¾with the People’s Republic of China in the lead¾were much less enthusiastic, even outright critical, insisting that it would create unnecessary tensions, possibly leading to arms races or crises, and undermine nonproliferation norms and rules. France was also deeply upset because AUKUS immediately led to Australia’s cancellation of a French-Australian submarine deal, without notice. In the days, weeks, and months that followed the AUKUS announcement, the Pacific Forum published, via its PacNet Commentary series, several preliminary analyses on the trilateral partnership, each reflecting a specific national perspective from throughout the Indo-Pacific and beyond. One year later, and as implementation of the AUKUS partnership remains ongoing, we have compiled these analyses into a Pacific Forum Issues & Insights volume. It is our hope that these publications will provide a basis for further study and additional recommendations.
Topic:
Partnerships, Multilateral Relations, AUKUS, and Regional Security
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Australia, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

4. France and AUKUS: Bouncing Back to Live Up to Pacific Challenges

Author:
Jérémy Bachelier and Celine Pajon
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
Abstract:
Back in September 2021, the announcement of AUKUS – the defense partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) was a shock to Paris. Not only it meant the brutal conclusion of a submarine deal signed in 2016, but it also provoked a major breach of confidence in France’s relations with its three key partners – shedding crude light on the divergences of approaches regarding the best way to salvage the rules-based order and address the China challenge. This initiative, intended to be a coordinated response to the Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific, called into question France’s strategic positioning in the region. One year after, however, AUKUS does not seem to have marked a major turning point regarding the French strategy in the Indo-Pacific, especially in the Pacific. After an immediate aftershock, France's bilateral relations with Washington, Canberra and to an extent London gradually recovered. Political and strategic discussions at the Shangri-La Dialogue in June 2022, the recent visits of the Australian Prime minister and minister of Defense in France and numerous bilateral calls at the end of Summer between French and Australian political and military leaders have pointed to a positive dynamic for an improved strategic cooperation in the region. Rather than prompting a radical change in the France's Indo-Pacific strategy, AUKUS highlighted a fault line between the strategic/political rhetoric level and the operational level of defense cooperation regarding the French engagement in this region. The multiple maritime security and climate change challenges in the Pacific Islands region require France to cooperate closely with its regional partners, starting with Australia, and continue to promote effective multilateralism. In addition, the growing risks of high-intensity conflicts in the vicinity of the Pacific Islands region, particularly in the Taiwan Strait and/or in the South China Sea, require for France to speed up the strengthening of its interoperability with its regional allies in the coming years and probably to decide on the role it would like to - and be able to - concretely support its own interest and allies.
Topic:
Security, Maritime, AUKUS, and Defense Cooperation
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, France, Australia, United States of America, Pacific Ocean, and Pacific Islands

5. AUKUS Update #1: May 2022

Author:
Marcus Hellyer and Ben Stevens
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
On the 16th of September 2021, the leaders of Australia, the UK and the US announced the creation of a new trilateral security partnership called ‘AUKUS’—Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The three national leaders stated, ‘We will foster deeper integration of security and defense-related science, technology, industrial bases, and supply chains. And in particular, we will significantly deepen cooperation on a range of security and defense capabilities.’ At a time of rapidly increasing strategic uncertainty, when it’s increasingly clear that authoritarian regimes are willing to use military power to achieve their goals, it’s important to monitor the implementation of AUKUS so that governments and the public can assess whether it’s achieving the goal of accelerating the fielding of crucial military technologies. To track the implementation of AUKUS, ASPI will publish regular updates on progress. This is the first of those updates.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, National Security, Alliance, and AUKUS
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Australia, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America

6. What is AUKUS and what is it not?

Author:
Michael Shoebridge
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
What IS the new AUKUS partnership between the US, the UK and Australia? How does it fit with the Quad, ASEAN and other new forums like the government-tech Sydney Dialogue? This new ASPI Insight sets out what AUKUS is—a technology accelerator that’s’ about shifting the military balance in the Indo Pacific. Just as importantly, it sets out what AUKUS it isn’t, to reset some of the discussion that has made some assumptions here. AUKUS isn’t a new alliance structure, a competitor to the Quad between Australia, India, Japan and the US, or a signal of decreased commitment to ASEAN forums by the AUKUS members. And the Insight proposes some focus areas for implementation of this new ‘minilateral’ technology accelerator, including having a single empowered person in each nation charged with implementation and ‘obstacle busting’. This is to break through the institutional, political and corporate permafrost that has prevented such rapid technological adoption by our militaries in recent decades. As is the case with James Miller in the US, this person should report to their national leader, not from inside the defence bureaucracies of the three nations. On purpose and urgency, the report identifies a simple performance metric for AUKUS implementers over the next three years. On 20 January 2025, when the Australian prime minister calls whoever is the US president on that day, AUKUS has become such a successful piece of the furniture, with tangible results that have generated broad institutional, political and corporate support that, regardless of how warm or testy this leaders’ phone call is (think Turnbull-Trump in January 2016), AUKUS’s momentum continues.
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, Alliance, AUKUS, and Quad Alliance
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Australia, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

7. AUKUS - A Harbinger of a New Geopolitical Reality

Author:
Giorgi Badridze
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:
In September of this year, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States announced the creation of a new defense pact in the Asia-Pacific region called AUKUS (which is an abbreviation for the names of the member states: Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States). This paper will discuss the objectives of this new tripartite pact as well as the rationale behind the reactions thereto vis-à-vis leading international players and how it reflects the current balance of power and security prospects in the world. Ongoing processes in the world today, including the creation of AUKUS, indicate that China's power and influence have grown so much that the more or less stabile world order may be radically altered if this is not balanced within the security sphere. The main task of the United States (the dominant power of the existing world order) and its allies is to prevent irreversible changes in world order; in particular, those that will accelerate the formation of Chinese hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Alliance, and AUKUS
Political Geography:
China, United Kingdom, Australia, and United States of America