Tag Archive for: AUKUS

Australia’s lack of defence primes isn’t a problem; it’s an opportunity

Australia is uniquely suited to help solve the greatest defence acquisition challenge of our time. While the world is innovating at an unmatched pace, the old scions of the defence industry are not.

Western armed forces need equipment that is developed and built not just more cheaply and quickly but with evolution built in. They cannot keep waiting for superb systems that take many years, even decades, to get into service and cost so much that few units can be bought—and are then improved only on achingly slow schedules, if at all.

General Jim Rainey, the commander of the US Army Futures Command, had sharp comments when he visited ASPI this spring: ‘We need to change and adapt how we acquire. We are either going to do it now or we are going to do it when we go to war.’

Australia’s chief of army, Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, was equally sanguine: ‘As one of my predecessors, Sir Henry Wells, adroitly put it in 1957, we must “avoid the situation where soldiers have to be killed to learn”.’

And at ASPI’s Sydney Dialogue in September, Abraham M Denmark, a senior associate from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, had a blunt call to action: ‘Adapt or die.’

By all appearances, US and British primes contractors have chosen ‘die’. Despite increasing calls to change the way they develop defence technologies, they keep podding along with their old processes. At Land Forces 2024, while discussing how the Australian Army relied on space, Northrop Grumman offered to lend its ‘experience and primacy in space’ to help up-and-coming firms—but seemed to have no direct answer to Starlink, a cost-effective commercial service that militaries across Europe and the Indo-Pacific are looking to.

Pillar 2, the part of AUKUS that is not about nuclear submarines, has not enjoyed the detailed attention of Pillar 1, which is. It has been dismissed occasionally as a grab bag of disparate technologies, but a common thread runs through them. Not only will they be critical in a future fight; they are all innovations that primes have failed to deliver over the past decade. China is investing heavily in these technologies and, according to ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker, is now outpacing the AUKUS partners.

At Land Forces, the US and British prime contractors at least acknowledged the problem, conceding they needed to reduce historical seven- to 10-year production timelines down to 18 to 24 months. It’s unclear how the prime contractors, widely known for cost overruns and delayed delivery, can cut their development times by 80 percent. Regardless, the processes need to be not just faster but fundamentally different.

The US and British defence industries are accustomed to a waterfall process, in which development progresses slowly ‘from requirements definition through to testing, deployment, and field use.’ The process is linear and often irreversible. ‘Information flows in one direction only, regardless of the downstream consequences for the system …’. What is needed, instead, is ‘an iterative fashion where requirements and design solutions can evolve as the technology is developed.’

Take drone technology, for example. In recent research, the Royal United Services Institute’s Justin Bronk and Jack Watling outline findings that Ukraine’s drone industry is constantly tweaking designs, adapting to a fiercely competitive battlefield. Everything from sensors, radios, software and weapons are getting updated every six to 12 weeks, they find.

At Land Forces, Anduril, a disrupting entrant to the US defence industry, demonstrated an understanding of current defence technology challenges: ‘It’s not about getting the tech faster to the warfighter. It’s about getting tech that can evolve,’ stated a spokesman, retired Lieutenant General Neil Thurgood.

Each Pillar 2 technology will require integrating systems of systems. Countering drones can require seamless integration of well over a dozen technologies, which react faster than a human can. The primes, however, continue to try and capture sole source vendor contracts.

While Australia doesn’t have the established defence primes the US and Britain have, it also doesn’t have their bad habits. And Pillar 2 technologies aren’t solely for the benefit of defence, with plenty of opportunity for dual use. Dean Rosenfield, the chief executive of defence-focused engineering company Nova, cites the example of Australia’s mining and farming industries. ‘Australia should be an autonomous systems superpower,’ he says.

Sixty years ago in The Lucky Country, Donald Horne was pessimistic about his compatriots. ‘Australia has not been a country of great innovation or originality,’ he wrote. ‘It has exploited the innovations and originality of others and much of its boasting is that of a parasite’. Half a century later, it is the US and British defence industries that have shown a persistent lack of cleverness. Pillar 2 represents an unmatched opportunity for Australia’s firms, if they wish to take it.

Putting economics before security leaves us exposed to Trump’s tariffs

World leaders convening at the APEC and G20 multilateral summits this week seemed to be nervously shadow boxing Donald Trump, who was relaxing ringside at the Ultimate Fighting Championship in New York.

Anthony Albanese recited talking points on ‘free and fair trade’—not to influence any counterparts present but as a message to Trump that Australia was well placed to be exempted from any broad tariffs that the incoming administration might impose. In doing so, he cited the healthy trade surplus that the United States enjoys with Australia, which will indeed be an important starting point.

But the Albanese government needs to reflect a little more deeply on the direction it has taken on economics and security before it assumes its credentials speak for themselves as befitting a reliable global player and partner.

In 2024, it’s not enough just to say we seek maximum economic engagement with all partners, minimising trade restrictions in pursuit of the frictionless flow of money, goods and services. That might have worked as a Platonic ideal of free trade back in the early 2000s but, as an approach to both free and fair trade in the 2020s, it ignores half the picture.

Australia stood its ground on its own security and sovereignty for a number of years and, as a consequence, incurred the wrath of Beijing in the form of several waves of economic coercion and diplomatic unapproachability. We did this not under pressure from Trump during his first administration—nor any other US government—but because it was in our own interests and adhered to our values.

Yet despite Albanese’s insistence that we ‘have not changed our position’ on anything, Australia has steadily become silent and acquiescent on key issues that would risk upsetting Beijing. In return, we have been rewarded with diplomatic charm and trade assurances. We have, in short, chosen domestic economics over our national security and our standing as a stout defender of an international system based on rules. We have all too quickly forgotten that economics and security are inseparable.

How so? We’ve failed to stand up for our neighbours, including the Philippines, as they are bullied by China in the South China Sea. We withdrew from World Trade Organization cases that would have held Beijing to account for its coercive measures and set an example to the rest of the world. We’ve gone completely silent on China’s appalling human rights record. We have stopped referring to the case of Australian Yang Hengjun as arbitrary detention. We say nothing about China’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. We are dawdling on defence investment when we should be readying ourselves to make a steadfast contribution to regional security as Beijing flexes its muscle across the Indo-Pacific. We’ve all but lost interest in the diversification that we agreed was vital for our resilience in the wake of the double hit of China’s coercion and the global shockwaves of the Covid pandemic.

We should do all of these first and foremost because they are the right things to do. But they would also mean we could say with real conviction that Australia is not one of those countries that is relying on the US to singlehandedly make the world a fair place for everyone—even those unwilling to carry some of the load themselves by, for instance, investing in their own defence and security.

To be sure, Trump’s global tariffs threats are a blunt instrument, articulated with his characteristic flair for appealing to the sections of US society—a clear majority, as it turns out—who feel that the world is taking advantage of them. We can hope that Trump will distinguish between allies—even if he is right to grumble that some have free-ridden on US security and leadership—and adversaries such as China, which was welcomed onto a level economic playing field only to cheat remorselessly at every turn of the game.

But we shouldn’t easily assume we’d be exempted as we were from Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs in 2017. The fact is, our exemption back then was won by proving we were investing in our own security and were a true partner to the US rather than a hanger-on.

AUKUS provides us with a good starting point this time, demonstrating real investment in our own security and in the alliance. But the partnership is not enough on its own, when we are cutting other defence programs, including in space security, while also criticising countries that can’t harm us economically—whether friends such as  Israel or foes such as North Korea—while excusing China’s malign behaviour as just what ‘great powers do’.

Albanese only ever answers China questions with the same trope that Australia is ‘cooperating where we can and disagreeing where we must’. This is not good enough when we don’t actually know where we disagree anymore, nor indeed if the ‘must have’ disagreements would arise only if China used military force.

For Albanese to be able to prove his statement in Peru that Australia is a free and fair trading nation, we need to show we are willing not just to reap the benefits of selling goods to China but to share the burden of security requirements.

Instead we are pursuing our economic interests with China while deprioritising security threats to ensure diplomatic meetings, as well as lobster and wine sales. That’s trade, yes. But it’s neither free nor fair.

Relying on the US, as well as other friends such as Japan, to do the heavy lifting on security is not equitable. It is actually an ‘Australia first’ policy—even while we fret about Trump’s putting America first.

How the government can engage youth on AUKUS

AUKUS Pillar 1 won’t go anywhere without today’s young people. They’re the ones who will carry the decades-long program into action through industry and diplomacy. The Australian government had better get them on board.

This requires a communications plan that begins with finding out what they think: comments, questions and concerns. University and technical-college student bodies should be a focus.

The assertion that young people are sceptical of the prospect of nuclear-propelled submarines (SSNs) under the AUKUS partnership is not new. Polling finds lower levels of support from the 18-24 age group than from older people. These young critics believe AUKUS Pillar 1 will contribute to tensions and drive a dangerous arms race in the Indo-Pacific. The 2023 Lowy Institute Poll found that more young Australians believe Australia’s acquisition of SSNs will increase the risk of military conflict and regional instability (32.6 percent) than deter conflict and ensure stability (17.3 percent). Conversely, in all older age groups, more people believe the latter. Protests at the Australian National University (ANU) echo arguments of Australian ‘militarism’.

Some young critics argue that the government must first do more to tackle the rising cost of living, which directly affects student quality of life, rather than increasing defence spending. Anti-AUKUS posters seen at the ANU cite ‘Welfare, not warfare’, calling for the government to better address inflation. Only 17 percent of the 18–24 age group believe SSN-AUKUS is worth its estimated cost of $268 billion to $368 billion. Again, this approval rate steadily increases in older age groups.

The evidence that students cite in their criticisms reflect a general misunderstanding of the reasoning for AUKUS. The fault for this lies with the government in failing to be clear and transparent about the threats that Australia faces. But it isn’t too late.

So, what should the government do?

Greater awareness of Australia’s strategic environment among young people is needed, fostered through inclusive conversations and clear language on the purpose of AUKUS. The first step is to conduct large-scale focus group interviews and surveys nationwide, to assess students’ knowledge, misunderstandings and perceptions of AUKUS. By gauging understanding, the government can begin to inform their communication strategies and seek policy feedback. Using university channels such as online forum and announcement pages or mass emails would be a great place to start.

The next step is to work with universities to conduct town hall meetings. Creating a space for moderated dialogue between the government, academics and students will empower young people to feel a sense of urgency and responsibility for the future of national security. It will also create a more informed student body equipped to navigate the Australia’s strategic landscape. Explaining AUKUS in the university setting can dilute the complexity of its goals and make it more accessible to those studying a range of courses.

An action plan on communication is needed, and fast. Young people cannot be expected to support, and eventually deliver, an endeavour they know nothing about. The government should use digital platforms such as YouTube or Instagram. Short, informative videos or infographics can deliver AUKUS in a digestible and accessible way.

AUKUS dissent is part of a wider trend of young people’s disengagement from major-party policies. They feel like their voices aren’t being heard. Among voters aged 18-24, 28 percent voted for the Greens in the 2022 federal election, reflecting this trend. Young people move further towards the left each election cycle and prioritise policies on climate action and social equality.

Falling trust in government institutions is a global trend, worsened in Australia by major-party politics that don’t reflect the values of the young population. Fostering inclusivity in the AUKUS discussion is thus more crucial than ever.

By gathering university student insights, the government not only demonstrates a commitment to transparency and inclusivity but also enhances trust between policymakers and younger citizens. Ultimately, this feedback loop serves to promote informed public discourse, ensuring that policies such as AUKUS are effectively communicated and resonate with the values and concerns of the next generation of leaders.

Seven things for Britain’s AUKUS review to fix

The AUKUS review that Sir Stephen Lovegrove will deliver to the British government this month represents a vital opportunity to consolidate the project’s successes and turn a clean page on the areas of dysfunction and inertia that have dogged the project’s first three years.

Sir Stephen has been tasked with assessing British progress with AUKUS, identifying obstacles and advising on further opportunities for the Australian-UK-US defence technology partnership.

Since AUKUS was announced in September 2021, Britain has succeeded in assembling a community of highly motivated officials to work at an impressive pace on this long-term and deeply complex project. This task has been even more commendable in the shadow of the urgent demands made of Britain as the leading European power supporting Ukraine. But the lack of centralised Cabinet Office oversight, the absence of dedicated political leadership for the project, and the failure to connect AUKUS to an integrated economic and national security mission have impeded progress and threatened government’s capacity to deliver on its high ambitions.

Sir Stephen played an instrumental role in the initial conception of AUKUS in his then position as Britain’s national security adviser until he left the government in late 2022 ahead of the announcement of the Optimal Pathway agreement in March 2023. The review will confront not only the highly debated project design for developing and building the SSN-AUKUS submarines but much less visible but equally important questions of process, ownership and leadership. Seven of these issues requiring urgent attention are set out below.

Governance reform

The current machinery-of-government in Britain facilitating AUKUS must be rethought. A decision in 2023 to move the project’s leadership from the Cabinet Office to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) embedded an institutional perception that AUKUS is a limited to a narrow defence-capabilities delivery project. It also put AUKUS at risk of falling on the chopping block when ‘hard choices’ between MoD budget lines have to be made.

The MoD must remain the major stakeholder in AUKUS, but both the prize at stake in AUKUS and the path to achieve it go well beyond defence. Both Pillars 1 and 2 require system galvanisation from the very top and whole-of-government visibility, coordination and leadership to deliver the vision. The oversight and accountability for its success must therefore sit in the Cabinet Office.

Political leadership

Delivering on a project of this scale and complexity will require a specific minister with a dedicated focus to harness all levers available to the government. In the important effort to the foster bipartisan support required to sustain momentum, we have tended to underemphasise the political nature of AUKUS. It is and always has been a deeply geopolitical project that will succeed only if its contemporary custodians can find a political language and rationale to justify its considerable resources.

To date, Britain has sought to lead a fundamentally disruptive project largely through efforts to optimise governmental processes. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that anything less than full-throated support will see AUKUS wither on the vine.

AUKUS as an economic growth project

AUKUS needs to be recognised for its centrality to the British government’s economic ambitions. One of the most important institutional decisions of the past decade has been the choice to prioritise Britain’s knowledge economy—specifically, research and development, higher education and technological innovation—as the foundation of the national prosperity agenda. This means that a project such as AUKUS Pillar 2 (which seeks to accelerate our technological readiness pipeline in cooperation with our closest allies) gives Britain not only the capacity to engage meaningfully in strategic competition but also a leg-up on its core economic mission.

So, AUKUS must be integrated into the British government’s growth agenda and understood as deeply relevant to the nation’s domestic outcomes. The argument must be won with the Treasury to reframe AUKUS as a long-term investment in the nation’s future. As a growth mission, AUKUS can be run with a more ruthless focus on delivery—prioritising fewer projects than now, with proper resourcing, so its deterrence function can be achieved.

Strengthen the stakeholder ecosystem

The government must understand that it has an interest in keeping a broad group of stakeholders informed about AUKUS and in listening to what they have to say: industry, academia, Parliament, the media, think tanks and the general public.

It will benefit greatly, first, from an external policy environment that can help provide meaningful insights and advice to unlock the complex maze of challenges it faces in delivering AUKUS. Second, even though it may not always feel disposed to fostering greater scrutiny, the government will also benefit from an active public debate around all aspects of AUKUS.

Both of these require British institutions forging meaningful engagement settings with different stakeholders and directly supporting initiatives that enable these groups to make a substantive contribution to the project’s success.

The enabling environment

The government must understand that it will need to have a very active hand in fostering the conditions by which industry and academia can get on with it and deliver AUKUS projects.

Reforms to the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations mean the three nations can freely share about 80 percent of advanced technologies with each other. This is game-changing, but the reforms must be seen as simply the beginning and not the pinnacle of Pillar 2 achievement. There remains plenty of low-hanging fruit for the government to address—for example, the harmonising and expediting security clearances between the three partners. The government will also need to be the driving force behind industry-academic collaboration, mitigating the security and funding issues that have led to the privatisation of research labs.

Even the process of driving non-government funding into the AUKUS ecosystem, cajoling venture capitalists and pension funds to invest in defence innovation, will require government facilitation. Resources are tight, but achieving success in these endeavours for AUKUS will also provide wider benefits for Britain’s highly productive defence and technology industries.

Create compelling narratives

The need to design impactful and evolving narratives around AUKUS has been consistently undervalued. This is partly a legacy of the pact’s origins as a highly sensitive security project, but it also reflects miscalculations about the willingness of citizens to engage with the realities of Britain’s security environment. There has been an inclination to present AUKUS in the simple terms of retail politics, promising micro-level job creation opportunities in specific communities already deeply integrated with defence industrial production.

We know from opinion polling that Britons are sold on the bigger picture, supporting initiatives that facilitate allied cooperation, promote deterrence and lift national competitiveness.

There has also been an unwillingness to engage directly with misleading narratives, some promoted by well-meaning critics and others by our international adversaries. This lack of engagement has created a vacuum that risks putting the government on the back foot. It’s time for a grown-up conversation with the public about AUKUS, properly explaining what is being worked towards and confronting misinformation head-on.

AUKUS is the vanguard project of our allied future

AUKUS needs to be understood as a prototype for a new era of co-creation and co-development with our closest friends, particularly those from the G7+3 (the three being Australia, South Korea and India). Within this grouping of 10 nations, we should be hoping to achieve self-sufficiency in access to vital technologies and capabilities that can compete with the ferocious pace of innovation in China.

For this reason, we must stare down the notion that AUKUS is a zero-sum game of prioritising two allies at the expense of others. The benefits of AUKUS will be shared in part through the principle of NATO interoperability and in part due to the project’s experimental nature as the closest possible expression of allied cooperation outside wartime. AUKUS can and must be the blueprint of a future status quo.

Britain has taken some important actions to improve its performance in AUKUS in the past year, but there is much to be done for us to position our institutions to deliver on the considerable opportunities at stake. The Lovegrove review represents the best chance we have to inject new vigour, political ownership and structural reorganisation into AUKUS, so that Britain can best access the project’s full potential and its role in our future resilience.

Making the AUKUS partners interchangeable takes a defence ecosystem

To make the AUKUS partnership successful, the three partner nations will need to shift, as Defence Minister Richard Marles said in a speech in 2022, from interoperability to interchangeability.

Interchangeability goes beyond the ability to operate together; it means components and systems from different manufacturers and countries can be effortlessly swapped and integrated. It means any capability acquired by one of the AUKUS partners can be seamlessly introduced into service and operated by the others.

And to achieve this, we need our defence industrial bases to become a well-functioning ecosystem. Defence firms need to work closely with their defence departments and capability organisations and engage with universities and one another. This applies to primes and to small and medium enterprises.

Moving from interoperability to interchangeability is not a distant aspiration; it is an immediate necessity. By adopting an ecosystem approach, reforming export controls, and empowering our workforce, we can forge a defence industrial base that is both resilient and flexible.

Take for example, nuclear powered submarines (SSNs). Our firm, QinetiQ, leads on the test and evaluation and operational assurance of British submarines, and our ranges and skills are being adapted to also provide UK regional assurance for visiting United States SSNs and, eventually, Australia’s.

This can accelerate Australia’s acquisition of capabilities in test and evaluation and in training and mission rehearsal—not only for Australian SSNs but also to enhance interoperability for each nation’s SSN deterrence capabilities.

We recently announced the formation of Team TECSA, a collaborative initiative bringing together industry and academia to address Australia’s requirement for test and evaluation, certification and systems assurance.

This task is beyond the capacity of any single company, making collaboration across the entire defence ecosystem essential.

Interchangeability also raises the question of where we can augment our supply chains and create efficiencies. The progress made in the guided weapons and explosive ordinance enterprise is an example of establishing Australia as a reliable second source for critical munitions.

There are also opportunities in critical minerals, quantum computing, AI and in vital components as diverse as ball bearings and rocket motors.

In the same way that Australia has been a major beneficiary and a key market for the US defence industry, opportunities are emerging for Australian businesses to play a bigger role in supporting US defence production.

Take for example, the Australian Department of Defence’s Global Supply Chain (GSC) initiative. In the past, Australian companies were able to access niche opportunities in the US. Under AUKUS, the objective is to seamlessly integrate Australian industrial knowhow into a common market.

We are talking about a new wave of opportunity for Australian businesses that is unprecedented.

A critical enabler of this vision is export control reform. Export controls serve as the rules of engagement in our industry, ensuring that technology and information flow securely and responsibly across borders. Reforming these controls is crucial to facilitate true industry interoperability.

By harmonising export regulations, we create an environment in which defence partners can share technology and collaborate without unnecessary barriers. This reform not only strengthens alliances but also accelerates innovation by providing access to a broader range of resources and expertise.

Much progress has been accomplished since Marles’s declaration of intent two years ago. These reforms are the foundations of our enhanced partnership. They form the high external walls needed to protect the most sensitive information and technology that is the lifeblood of our sector and lower the internal walls to foster co-operation and innovation.

There is still work ahead of us to realise the aspiration for an AUKUS defence industry free-trade zone, allowing for seamless collaboration by commercial, industrial and research entities from all three nations.

None of these advances can happen without addressing our most valuable asset—our workforce.

Our people are the driving force behind innovation and transformation. To achieve interchangeability, we must harness their full potential and address the gaps in skills and capabilities.

Fostering the best possible talent pipeline is not solely the job of our governments.

It requires policymakers, defence forces, industry, universities and unions to do their part.

QinetiQ runs a sovereign skills program that transfers our employees from Australia to Britain to participate in live test and evaluation environments. This knowledge transfer ensures our employees learn about QinetiQ’s global test and evaluation and threat mission rehearsal capabilities so that they return to provide the skills needed to meet Australia’s defence priorities.

By investing in training programs and cross-border collaborations, the defence industry can ensure that our workforce is equipped to tackle the challenges of tomorrow. This exchange of expertise enriches our collective knowledge base, making us more adaptable and proficient.

A world where defence equipment can be quickly adapted to meet the evolving demands of modern warfare, regardless of its origin, requires us to transcend traditional boundaries. It demands open standards, common platforms and aligned objectives across nations.

This is no longer about competition between our countries; instead, it is about ensuring that the sum of our parts is greater than if we acted alone. Our strategic circumstances demand this new approach.

AUKUS and US forces: the question of independence

One does not have to agree with those who think that AUKUS is an abomination to be similarly concerned about AUKUS cost and schedule uncertainties, and the significant trade-offs that will have to be made in the Defence budget to accommodate the acquisition of nuclear-propelled submarines.  These issues should be the subject of public scrutiny and debate. 

However, the far more vital issue that the critics raise is how, in their view, the AUKUS technology partnership, and the new basing arrangements for US nuclear-capable bombers, attack submarines, and other forces, will undermine Australia’s sovereignty and independence; are contrary to the national interest of seeking ‘security in Asia’; and affront our sense of national pride. 

If this were the 1990s, there might be a point to this criticism.  At the time, the policy of seeking ‘security in Asia’ made sense. Acquiring nuclear-propelled submarines, and hosting US combat forces, did not. However, after 2000, ‘security in Asia’ started to become a mirage, once a militarising, and increasingly belligerent, China began to fracture the peace of Asia. 

Debates about sovereignty and independence should not be treated as tests of patriotism or ‘national pride’. What is in issue is a hard strategic reality: seeking ‘security in Asia’ will be meaningless for as long as China continues to act coercively, even while still calibrating its actions so as to avoid, for the moment, direct confrontation. It has expansionist designs to displace the United States as the primary regional power. It is in our interests to work with others to prevent this. Absent US strategic primacy, there is no credible collective counterbalance to China. The choice is therefore a binary one: between being in partnership with an engaged and regionally dominant US, or taking our chances with China as the pre-eminent regional power. 

Acquiring long-range nuclear-propelled submarines under AUKUS, transforming ANZUS into an operational military alliance, and hosting US combat forces in Australia are better policies for the times. These initiatives will help to build regional deterrence, and harden Australia as a secure bastion, should tragically war come. They should be seen as an independent decision on Australia’s part to band together with others in a deliberate strategy to deter Chinese aggression and resist Chinese regional hegemony. 

This need not entail global confrontation, and proxy wars of the kind seen in the Cold War. Competition with China can be best managed through diplomacy, and trade, investment and technology policies. Where this will not work is in the ‘Quad arc’ of the Asian periphery, from Japan to Australia, and around to India. In this arc, hard military power will count most.    

Unfortunately, the missing element in this mix is the lamentable erosion of our own defence capability. Australia’s military power is at least a percentage point of GDP below its required fighting weight when we face the prospect of what the 1987 Defence White Paper termed ‘more substantial conflict’—where Australia would be at risk of being attacked by a major power. As a consequence, Australia is contributing more to facing the China challenge by providing access to geography than it is through hard military power—when we should be doing both.  

Deterrence entails being prepared to engage in warfighting, because the adversary has to understand that those seeking to deter it are willing to use force, if necessary. Alliances and military coalitions are collective endeavours. Strength comes from banding together to confront difficult strategic challenges, a sovereign act where the alternative is worse. 

I agree with the critics who say that our ability to now abstain from a future US-China war is only nominal, notwithstanding the platitudes about Australia reserving its sovereign rights. True enough on paper, but a fuller and more honest explanation is required.  For Australia to actively decline to take part in a US-China war, it would have to deny the US access to the use of facilities in Australia, whether those that were established in the 1960s (Pine Gap being the best known), or more critically any that might be used for mounting combat operations through or from Australia. Washington would heap enormous pressure on Canberra to allow just that, as Australia’s strategic geography would be vital terrain for the US in any such war.   

The critics bemoan the fact that, accordingly, Australia is now ‘locked in’. While they will point to Vietnam, the Gulf War, and Iraq as instances of the ‘folly’ of blindly following the United States (a topic for another day), those were not great power conflicts that could profoundly shape our own security. Today, Australia is demonstrating resolve, and unity of purpose, with others who similarly fear that the greater risk lies in an unchecked and dominant China. Thwarting the establishment of Chinese regional hegemony—which would be the inevitable consequence of a US withdrawal from, or defeat in, the Western Pacific—is in Australia’s national interest. While more analysis needs to be done of what Chinese hegemony might mean specifically for Australian sovereignty and independence, the best instinctive conclusion would be that our interests would be harmed far more than they would be advantaged. 

An accommodation of China’s interests should be attempted, by way of the skillful creation of a regional order that is accepted by all as being legitimate, in equilibrium, and thus at peace. However, given China’s belligerence, and the worrying degree of its war preparations, we are a very long way from achieving that order. One day, ‘security in Asia’ might again be in prospect. In this respect, perhaps the 2030s or the 2040s will be an echo of the optimistic 1990s.

First, however, the imminent China challenge has to be seen off, by a coalition that is prepared to pool its strength in a collective endeavour, preferably without war. We can make an independent choice today to collectively resist future subordination, or we can harm our national interest in the pursuit of outdated policies.

AUKUS and the real meaning of strategic sovereignty

In Australia, unlike Britain or the United States, AUKUS is subjected to a relentless barrage of criticism from various quarters. This is more than a fringe campaign.

Prominent critics include a former prime minister from each of the two major parties, Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull. The national broadcaster, the ABC, is enthusiastically providing a stage for the chorus of disapproval helping to mainstream these views.

This is despite the fact that AUKUS is now three years old, has delivered on many of its early benchmarks, and enjoys strong bipartisan support.

One line of criticism is that the agreement is governed by excessive secrecy. The need to hold AUKUS’s operational details close is justifiable. Yet by failing to lay out the strategic case for AUKUS more clearly and to counter various anti-AUKUS narratives actively, the government has not helped itself. Once a void in understanding opens up in today’s contested information era, it quickly becomes an echo chamber for misinformation and disinformation. Operational secrecy is no excuse for bad strategic communications.

The most stinging criticism is that AUKUS undermines Australia’s sovereignty. This is a unifying theme between Keating and Turnbull. Though they argue from different standpoints, their political seniority has lent the sovereignty argument extra weight in the debate.

Turnbull has cast doubt on Washington’s willingness to sell Virginia-class submarines to Australia, as AUKUS mandates, because he believes the US Navy and Congress will not agree to release such prized assets. He has expressed further reservations about Australia’s dependence on US proprietary technology, arguing that AUKUS binds Australia’s hands compared with the jettisoned French-built submarine design, which he approved as prime minister in 2016.

Keating’s more polemical reaction to AUKUS reflects his trenchant opposition to anything that integrates Australia further into a US strategy, as he sees it, of containing China. But they are aligned in their judgement that AUKUS undercuts Australia’s sovereignty as a strategic actor, and their hostility towards hosting US and British submarines in Western Australia later this decade.

This sovereignty-based framing of Australia’s alliance with the US is an embedded feature of Australia’s strategic debate—more so than for other US allies. Expanding the footprint of US military forces excites unusually visceral reactions in Australia. This is odd given that Washington’s other allies in the Indo-Pacific and Europe routinely host far larger numbers of US forces, yet at the same time Australia styles itself as America’s most loyal ally.

The basic reason Canberra has agreed to host US submarines and other strike assets is because Australia lacks sufficient combat power to defend its territory and vital interests autonomously, in a deteriorating balance of power. It is not, as the critics assert, because Australia has overinvested in AUKUS and needlessly yielded sovereignty, but because for decades Labor and Coalition governments have chronically underinvested in the Australian Defence Force’s combat capabilities. The failure to expedite a replacement to the Collins submarine fleet with sufficient vigour, including under the lapsed French deal, is the biggest failure of all.

AUKUS is a high-stakes effort to close that submarine capability gap, under ‘Pillar I’, and to develop an augmenting and complementary suite of advanced technologies, collectively under ‘Pillar II’. The AUKUS partners have further identified critical innovation and information-sharing enablers of such collaboration, requiring legislative, policy and process changes to be synchronised. Like any large-scale defence initiative, there are risks and opportunity costs attached. But the notion that Australia has traded away its sovereignty for a pathway to superior military capability is fundamentally misguided.

Just as Australia’s alliance with the United States is a sovereign, largely uncontroversial choice, so AUKUS is partly a bet on that alliance—and on the United Kingdom as a mutually trusted third party—to generate economies of investment and effort. New capabilities delivered under AUKUS, along with parallel efforts to improve the reach and lethality of the ADF, will help to restore and maintain a favourable balance of power. Though the government insists that AUKUS is not directed at any country, China’s rapid military and technological advances, magnified by its threatening behaviour, are the main benchmark.

For all the focus on submarines and exotic technologies, AUKUS has a foundational, less quantifiable value than just military capability outputs. The mechanisms, modalities and habits of co-operation that AUKUS builds among the three nations and within their own industrial and technology ecosystems are breaking through persistent, partly cultural barriers.

The biggest obstacle to a collective effort among like-minded partners and allies is inertia within the US defence-industrial complex and its Cold War-era framework of legislative and regulatory oversight. If AUKUS can overcome America’s own sovereignty-based qualms to unlock technology sharing and co-development, the spillover benefits for Australia will be substantial.

Indeed, the recent move to waive US licensing requirements for many—though not all—key defence technologies and services now in effect marks a major milestone on the road to AUKUS’s implementation. This highlights the initiative’s catalytic value in forcing closer and long overdue technological and industrial integration amongst the US and its two closest allies.

The tripartite effort required to realise AUKUS will continue to demand difficult trade-offs for all three partners. But AUKUS is emphatically not a threat to their individual sovereignty. It is rather a conscious, triple-bonded exercise of their sovereignty in pursuit of strategic outcomes greater than the sum of their parts, undergirded by persistent shared principles that will transcend the vicissitudes of politics.

Putting the NZ back into ANZUS: Why a fleeting reference means a lot

The New Zealand-US component of ANZUS was suspended in the 1980s because Wellington refused to admit American Navy vessels that were nuclear-powered, or that might be carrying nuclear weapons, into its ports. 

Buried in paragraph 21 of today’s joint statement between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is a moment in history that many might miss—a rare reference to the continued importance of the ANZUS Treaty to the Australia-New Zealand alliance:  

‘In the event of a cyber-attack that threatened the territorial integrity, political independence or security of either of our nations, Australia and New Zealand would consult together under the ANZUS Treaty to determine appropriate options to address the threat. They also affirmed that a cyber-attack on either nation could constitute an armed attack under Article IV of the ANZUS Treaty. A decision on whether such a cyber-attack would constitute an armed attack would be made on a case-by-case basis through close consultations between Australia and New Zealand.’ 

ASPI experts unpack the significance. 

 

Justin Bassi, executive director 

This is significant for multiple reasons. First, confirmation that a cyber-attack on either nation could constitute an armed attack under the ANZUS Treaty provides useful clarity.  

But even more significant is the acknowledgment by Luxon of the ANZUS Treaty itself. After the breakdown of the ANZUS Treaty as a trilateral alliance in 1985 with the downgrading of the relationship between the United States and New Zealand, the Treaty has rarely been named by the New Zealand political class, despite being the source of its bilateral alliance with Australia.  

When Australia and the US celebrated ANZUS’s 70th Anniversary in 2021, neither the NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern nor her defence or foreign ministers referred to it at all.  

The reference to ANZUS continues Luxon’s foreign policy reset. He has been bolder than his predecessors, laying out a role for New Zealand within a global strategic outlook that is based on core partnerships. In a world of conflict, with wars in Europe and the Middle East and China creating tensions in the South China Sea and over Taiwan, New Zealand is messaging that it wants to be involved in the discussions on how to regain stability and deterrence, and that it has a role to play.  

This latest backing in of ANZUS comes off the Luxon government’s public support for the Five Eyes group—which was downplayed by the previous New Zealand government—and his attendance at the recent NATO Summit in Washington, where he said: ‘The intensifying military relationship we see between Russia and North Korea and China’s role in supporting the rebuilding of Russia’s industrial base demonstrates the indivisibility of issues between Europe and our part of the world.’ 

 

Bart Hogeveen, acting director of cyber, technology and security 

The recognition that a cyber-attack could constitute an armed attack against the territorial integrity of either state under the ANZUS treaty is a welcome step that brings the Australia-New Zealand alliance into alignment with other liberal alliances. 

AUSMIN, NATO and the US-Japan security treaty have all indicated that a cyber attack could constitute an armed attack that warrants a collective response. Today’s statement by Albanese and Luxon is arguably the strongest ANZUS reference to collective cyber defence, noting it was made at the leaders’ level and connects to Article 4, the main collective defence clause of ANZUS.  

It shows a growing acceptance by the New Zealand and Australian governments that the digital domain is also a domain of warfare. It builds on recent attributions by Canberra and Wellington, independently and collaboratively with other Five Eyes partners, of malicious cyber operations affecting national and economic security, and electoral processes.  

Cyber threat assessments from New Zealand’s signals intelligence and cybersecurity agencies have become more alarming in recent years. Recognising that such state-sponsored operations and campaigns may—at some point and in certain circumstances—amount to an armed attack serves as an important deterrent. It also paves the way for Canberra and Wellington to set boundaries to when, where and how international law applies to state conduct in cyberspace, including the laws of armed conflict. 

 

Euan Graham, senior analyst 

New Zealand has endorsed AUKUS’s contribution to regional security and stability, while also registering its interest in participating in Pillar II in future. The fact that there are no explicit caveats attached to Pillar I in the Joint Statement further suggests that the Luxon government will approach Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, under AUKUS, pragmatically and in a low-key manner in spite of Wellington’s prevailing anti-nuclear policies. 

The mutual embedding of senior ADF and NZDF officers into the joint commands of each other’s armed forces will make it easier for Australia and New Zealand to conduct military operations together, and is a sign of their willingness to integrate at a deeper level. 

The reference to ‘combined procurement’ in an ‘ANZAC’ context is also a welcome indication that interoperability remains important to New Zealand—a point underscored by New Zealand’s induction into service of the P-8A, as a high-end maritime surveillance and anti-submarine platform that can operate seamlessly alongside the ADF and US forces.  

It also leaves the door open for New Zealand to join Australia’s general-purpose frigate acquisition in future, although Wellington is not quite at that point yet. Australia would be likely to support this ‘ANZAC redux’ option, for reasons of interoperability, but also to generate an economy of scale that could bring down the costs of its own acquisition process.  

While the main significance of the joint statement is in the revival of ANZUS and its explicit invocation in the scenario of a cyber attack, New Zealand and Australia remain military partners in Southeast Asia, though the Five Power Defence Arrangements, as well as close partners in the Pacific. Hence the nod towards close defence co-operation will also be read into these regional commitments where the ADF and NZDF have existing commitments and close habits of cooperation. 

 

Malcolm Davis, senior analyst 

The important recognition of the challenge posed by cyber threats in the Luxon-Albanese joint statement is an opportunity for both Australia and New Zealand to work more closely together on another increasingly important domain—space. In reality, the two domains cannot be decoupled. 

Both countries will increasingly depend on constellations of satellites to support a full range of national activities, and to ensure national security and prosperity. Space is a contested and congested operational domain with satellites—and the ground stations that manage them—being ideal targets for an adversary to threaten with cyber attacks.  Such a ‘soft kill’ produces no space debris but denies access to vital space support. In this sense, the dependency of both countries on the space domain, and the threat posed by cyberwarfare, sees the boundaries of space and cyberspace increasingly blurred. 

Working together on space could provide a pathway for New Zealand to engage with AUKUS Pillar 2 in cyber—in which New Zealand Defence Minister Judith Collins has shown an interest. Space is also becoming relevant to Pillar 2, with the announcement that the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) will be established under AUKUS. 

 

Alex Bristow, senior analyst 

When New Zealand refused to admit into its ports US Navy vessels that were nuclear-powered or might be carrying nuclear weapons, Washington’s view was that if its allies wanted protection—including shelter under the nuclear umbrella—they had to accept some of the risks associated with extended deterrence. Freeriding was not an option. With America First shaping US politics today, that view has only hardened. 

Today’s announcement has not reset the nuclear clock. While there has been some restoration of US-New Zealand defence co-operation since the 1980s, including port visits to New Zealand by conventionally powered and armed US Navy ships, anti-nuclear sentiment remains embedded in New Zealand. Wellington’s nuclear ban will extend to the conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines that Australia will acquire through AUKUS, as Luxon’s predecessor Jacinda Ardern made clear after AUKUS was announced.  

While anti-nuclear sentiment was also significant in Australia in the 1980s, Canberra used nimble diplomacy to mitigate the blowback it felt from the fracturing of ANZUS. By signing the Treaty of Rarotonga in 1985, which established the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, Canberra mollified Wellington and its wider Pacific partners. But Canberra also inserted caveats into the treaty that made visits by US nuclear forces exempt from the prohibition on stationing nuclear weapons within the SPNFZ—a policy that has allowed nuclear-capable US bombers to rotate through Australia for decades. 

Today’s announcement deals with cyber, but it refocuses minds on the continued importance of ANZUS for wider deterrence. At some point, that discussion must include the US and must cover extended nuclear deterrence. The conversation will become more complicated as the US develops a more conspicuous forward presence for its nuclear forces in the Indo-Pacific and expects more burden-sharing from allies to support this. 

 

Raji Rajagopalan, resident senior fellow, ASPI 

Luxon has attached special importance to India in the speech, stating that he is determined to broaden and deepen New Zealand’s relations with India. Clearly, there is interest on both sides in enhancing the relationship even though, traditionally, India and New Zealand have not been significant partners.  

This is changing with the increasing frequency of visits and contact between the two countries. India’s President Droupadi Murmu was in New Zealand earlier this month, while New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters was in Delhi a few months back.  

There is talk of a free trade agreement even though, according to the Indian foreign ministry, it remains aspirational at this point. India is also establishing a new consulate in Auckland. There are now about 8,000 Indian students in New Zealand, and the two countries signed an air services agreement to facilitate direct flights. 

New Zealand has a high-technology base that could help India. For example, India used a chip manufactured by a New Zealand company in its Chandrayaan space mission.  

Underlying this desire for closer ties is concern about the growing instability in the region and the world, which Luxon highlighted in his Lowy speech. There are likely to be some disagreements on Russia and Ukraine, but this is common to India’s relations.

What is more pertinent is the concern about China in the Indo-Pacific. A recent survey in New Zealand showed that India has now overtaken Singapore as the third most important Asian country, while concern about China continues to grow.  

Prime Minister Luxon supported the expanding scaffolding security architecture in the region, including the Quad, which New Delhi will appreciate.

There is a potential for future co-operation between Quad countries and New Zealand in areas such as space technology, cyber warfare and intelligence. Another area of potential co-operation is the South Pacific because of the large Indian diaspora in the region. Indeed, the Indian President went to Fiji before arriving in New Zealand. 

Bold push into quantum computing is Australia’s Manhattan moment

The Manhattan Project, a response to Germany’s combination of innovation and military power, unleashed nuclear physics on the world. Its success positioned the United States at the forefront of progress in critical technologies and demonstrated that innovation was central both to economic prosperity and national security.

Today, in a new era of strategic competition with authoritarian China, liberal democracies, including those in minilateral groupings such as the Quad, AUKUS and NATO, are identifying their own modern day Manhattan Projects.

The Australian Government’s announcement earlier this year of an almost $1 billion investment in PsiQuantum confirmed that Australia had set its sights on breakthroughs in quantum computing to usher in a comparable technological revolution.  

The US has quickly followed suit, announcing its own PsiQuantum partnership today. As one of only six advanced capabilities in AUKUS pillar two, it is noteworthy that two of the AUKUS partners have invested close to $2 billion to build the world’s first and second—respectively—“fault tolerant quantum computers” (FTQCs).  

Indeed, the only better strategic move for Australia than being the first mover in this area was to be joined by its ally, and AUKUS and Quad partner, the US. While these specific projects are both with PsiQuantum, the ambition and drive for breakthroughs in all areas of quantum computing is to Australia’s advantage, and the involvement of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—the organisation responsible for the first breakthroughs in the internet—should give governments, industry and other stakeholders confidence in investing further in the name of economic security.  

We know through Beijing’s ‘Made in China 2025’ plan that quantum computing is one of the industries it has prioritised. Success in such areas of innovation will take investment at the national level and leveraging international structures—including AUKUS pillar two—to ensure the ambitious endeavours of industry and current finite talent pools are incentivised.

Make no mistake, the quantum approach in which both governments have invested will be difficult to achieve. They require high-volume semiconductor manufacturing and cryogenic infrastructure—essentially very big fridges—to be built rapidly. The skills shortage in the semiconductor industry is a well-known problem, and the FTQC industry needs these same workers to build its components. Also, programmers capable of developing algorithms to run on a full-scale FTQC that can lead to breakthroughs in emission reductions and drug discovery are in limited supply.  

While both nations have started with PsiQuantum, success, like the original Manhattan Project, will take a collective effort. As Australia and the US commit to bringing FTQC online within the next decade, co–ordinating under AUKUS and the alliance to drive rapid upskilling across the industry will be critical. This major investment will need more than just money to support the quantum industry and academic partners. It could also involve reviewing immigration constraints that affect workforce mobility and training across Australia and the US, and facilitating pathways for greater industry engagement with FTQCs to prepare them to seize the benefits of the first machines when they arrive.  

It will also be vital to capitalise on progress under AUKUS, including to make sure the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and export controls don’t hinder progress across the two FTQC sites in Brisbane and Chicago. This preparedness and education of industry and government users of the computers are what will ensure there is quick progress in areas such as climate sustainability and pharmaceuticals when the first machines come online, delivering quickly on the promise of economic, social and national security benefits.     

Australia’s investment in building the world’s first FTQC in Queensland and growing the broader industry and academic activity in Brisbane is a significant step in harnessing its decade’s worth of public investments in basic research in quantum technologies, giving the nation a globally recognised competitive edge. Taking global leadership in quantum investment ahead of—albeit closely followed by—the US shows that Australia has learnt its lesson from three decades ago when the government missed the boat on investing in the photovoltaics research team at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), which moved to China where it received support to become a solar power giant. 

DARPA’s announcement to concentrate its quantum computing efforts around the newly established Illinois Quantum and Microelectronic Park is validation that Australia is leading the world in FTQC technology and is serious about having the upper hand as strategic competition with China intensifies. The Biden administration’s 2022 export controls on advanced semiconductors aimed at preventing China from bolstering its military capabilities are likely to have only slowed down China’s military progress. Unable to access advanced semiconductors, Beijing has accelerated domestic semiconductor investments. Without our own innovation— including through AUKUS—China will catch up and, given its capacity to hyperscale its industries, potentially surpass US technological dominance in AI and specific military capabilities such as hypersonics. Indeed it told the world that was its aim in its Made in China 2025 plan.  

The controls denying China access to advanced semiconductors have opened a brief window for Australia, our national security partners in private industry, and researchers to establish a decisive lead in quantum computing. This opportunity is likely to bolster the alignment between Australia and its allies, given the limitless applications of quantum computing. For example, quantum communications have the potential to make it all but impossible to decipher secure communications, protecting systems against malign attacks from both quantum and classical computers. 

Australia’s National Quantum Strategy showcases the government’s risk appetite for pursuing strategic investments that will spawn sovereign critical capabilities supporting our national security and way of life. Some argue that, if the world’s first quantum computer can be built in Brisbane, then it is possible to build nuclear-powered submarines, given the trilateral collaborative nature of AUKUS and the reality of working with allies that have been building them for many decades.     

The consortium investment model favoured by both Australia and the US in their commitment to quantum serves as an example of public-private research collaboration models for other technology areas. Notably, the strong co-operation between industry and academia—with PsiQuantum recently announcing a partnership with five universities in Queensland and a similar scale of academic engagement in Illinois—demonstrates how AUKUS pillar two technologies require engagement across industry, academia and government.  

This is difficult at a large scale, but it is achievable. Ideally, the new UK government will head down a similar path, though one advantage of AUKUS is to leverage both collective and respective expertise. 

This is Australia’s Manhattan moment. Delivering on the promise of quantum computing will require ongoing collaboration with allies to reap the reward of this bold investment. 

Four lessons for four more years of Trump

Former President Donald Trump was already the frontrunner to win November’s presidential election, with the  assassination attempt on 13 July and his defiant response only increasing his chance of victory.

Global capitals, including Canberra, are abuzz with policymakers and experts anticipating a predictably unpredictable second Trump term. President Joe Biden’s dropping out of the presidential race on 21 July shouldn’t distract them from the need to get ready for a possible return of Trump.

But the unpredictability of a second Trump term doesn’t mean the former president is random or absent strategy. Trump would be better prepared than he was for his first time in office. Australia, therefore, has enough of a roadmap to use the next six months to plan for Trump 2.0, which would require Canberra to avoid any penchant for reactive thinking or falling into a flat-footed state of voyeurism.

Australia, and our Quad partners, fared relatively well through the first Trump administration by anticipating both those areas where we needed to defend ourselves and those on which we could cooperate. Just as US founding father Benjamin Franklin stated, ‘well done is better than well said’, Trump considers the actions of allies more important than words. That can help shape four main lessons to navigate potential sources of friction and opportunity over the next four years.

First, Australia should showcase its national security credentials.

Strategic rivalry with China, especially on technology, would be front and centre of a second Trump term.

Selective technological decoupling from China, including by restricting Beijing’s access to advanced technologies, has been a bright light of American bipartisanship, with Biden continuing and expanding Trump-era policies.

Given Trump has said he wants ‘total independence from China’ and to ‘stop China owning America’, we can expect further expansion of the technology-driven economic security agenda. Many of these measures are in Australia’s national interest, but Canberra will need to encourage protection of our respective and collective sovereignty, not mere protectionism.

When Australia became the first country to exclude ‘high-risk’ vendors—namely Huawei—from its 5G network in 2018, it did so to protect national critical infrastructure. The decision gained respect within the Trump White House and across Washington, given the call was made without knowing the US decision while understanding the likelihood of Beijing’s retaliation.

Australia’s 5G decision helped rally a global coalition to mitigate Chinese technology risks and address the shifting technological balance away from the US and its allies.

Meanwhile, Australia pursued broader reforms in areas such as foreign investment screening and countering foreign interference, in part to protect cutting-edge technologies.

Recently, Australia has boosted cyber security protections, revised export controls and worked on further measures to protect the technology sector from espionage.

Australia’s clear-eyed and front-footed approach to China provides a strong track record for productively engaging Trump and his team.

In doing so, it will be important to show how Australia’s recent diplomatic stabilisation with China has not changed Australia’s willingness to ‘disagree where we must’. This includes calling out Chinese state-backed behaviour that breaches international rules, like Australia recently leading an international coalition to attribute cyber espionage to Beijing.

Second, Australia should share the burden of deterring aggression.

Trump wants peace through strength. This includes countering adversaries as well as preventing allies from free-riding on US security guarantees.

Australia has a good message in terms of commitment to our own security and the alliance, which should help avoid the tough love directed at the likes of NATO members and South Korea in Trump’s first term. Defence spending is set to increase to around 2.3 percent of GDP within the decade. The 2024 National Defence Strategy sets out major strategy, force structure and capability reforms as Australia responds to the loss of a 10-year strategic warning time for conflict.

Australia and the US have expanded collaboration on Australian soil. This includes rotations of American and British submarines through HMAS Stirling near Perth from 2027, enhancing nearer-term collective deterrence in the region.

Australia plans to pump around $6 billion into US and British defence industrial capacity in the coming decade, a long-term play to support Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS Pillar I. Canberra should promote this significant investment to Trump every chance it gets. But history is short-lived and a Trump White House would back in allies and partners who showed an ongoing commitment to their own security.

Third, Australia should push AUKUS as a good deal.

Trump is transactional, a dealmaker.

Even if he supports some or all AUKUS elements, the partnership will require long-term political, institutional, regulatory and industrial effort across the US, Britain and Australia to succeed.

For Trump and his closest advisers, Australia would need to sell the partnership’s advantages in making Australia a more capable and lethal ally, bolstering regional defence supply chains, and contributing to US-led deterrence of conflict in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia would need to highlight AUKUS’s merits as a boon for US companies, rather than being a drain on their technology, industry capacity and workforce.

As defence and technology transfer reform legislation comes into effect, Australia would also need to continue assuring the State Department and others that US technology would be protected.

Trump has a history of tearing up or renegotiating agreements he judges as taking America for a ride. Australia should ensure Trump doesn’t see AUKUS as an American hand-out but a transaction that boosts US capability to muscle up to China or, at worst, as a deal he would have got more for, but which is necessary and one he will make even stronger.

Finally, and above all, Australia should be bold.

Early in a second Trump term, the value of our US partnerships should be reinforced, starting with Quad meetings that emphasise that the grouping was revived in 2017 under his presidency. These should be swiftly followed by AUKUS meetings to highlight the benefits to the US and to demonstrate Australian’s contributions to vital technology.

If Trump is re-elected, the Albanese government and its representatives in Washington—starting with ambassador Kevin Rudd—will have a job ahead of them. But, unlike 2016, there are no excuses to be underprepared.

Tag Archive for: AUKUS

COCONUT WIRELESS – Dr Anthony Bergin, ASPI

This interview with Dr Anthony Bergin, Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) is the first of a series focused on Australia-United States relations as a result of the AUKUS security deal signed in September 2021 exploring how the AUKUS deal opened potential for business and investment opportunities for Australian business to partner with US firms in the Pacific.

Click here to view the video.

Information about membership of the Australia Pacific Islands Business Council is available here.

Tag Archive for: AUKUS

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