On a day of hoopla surrounding the Aukus unveiling in San Diego, perhaps the most revealing moment occurred during a press conference 12,000km away in Canberra.
Given that Australia’s multi-decade plan to gain nuclear-powered submarines will require the support of successive US administrations, a reporter asked the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, a very direct question on Tuesday: “Are you concerned that a future US president will tear it up?”
The answer was not immediate. He took a deep breath and paused for eight seconds before settling on the response: “Well – I’m not – is the answer to your question.”
Perhaps it was just the fact that Marles was up before the crack of dawn to sell a project that carries the eye-watering price tag of as much as $368bn between now and the 2050s. But the pause seemed to betray an understanding of just one of many risks surrounding the Aukus gambit, which also requires ongoing British support under the three-country deal.
Marles is a strong supporter of the US alliance – and is no “Manchurian candidate” as he was cartoonishly portrayed before the 2022 election – but he is on the record as having aired some concerns in the past about the superpower’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific.
It was not just an increasingly assertive China that was fuelling the most challenging strategic outlook for Australia since the second world war, Marles wrote in his 2021 book, Tides That Bind.
It was also an “unpredictable” US, he wrote then, that posed difficulties for its allies in the region. “There is a question mark over the future role of the US both in East Asia and globally,” Marles wrote.
That followed a tumultuous period marked by Donald Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, in which the then US president was openly sceptical of alliances and demanded Japan and South Korea shoulder more of the burden. Trump also abandoned a key regional trade agreement, which would have been a signal of enduring American economic engagement with the region. That deal, known then as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, was meant to set the “rules of the road” rather than leaving it to China to do so; now China wants to join the rebadged CPTPP.
Fast forward to today, and Marles is now the deputy prime minister and defence minister in an Australian Labor government that is making a big bet in the face of that uncertainty. He is reassured by the approach taken by Joe Biden’s administration – but maybe the only sure thing in Aukus is that it will reach its peak in the post-Biden era.
Marles told reporters on Tuesday the US alliance had “thrived under successive administrations and governments” and he believed Aukus would similarly be “an enduring arrangement”. Citing strong support in the US congress, he added: “Across the political spectrum, there is complete support for the relationship with Australia and the Aukus arrangements, so we enter this with a high degree of confidence.”
In an attempt to put that enduring commitment beyond doubt, Australia has agreed to sling a few billion dollars towards the US over the next four years to prop up its already strained production capacity. This could well be politically unpalatable at a time of budget pressures, but Canberra considers this a necessary downpayment towards the US being prepared to sell at least three (and as many as five) of its Virginia class submarines to Australia in the 2030s. Still, it is not hard to imagine a future president – Trump or otherwise – rethinking that sale on the basis of prioritising US needs above those of Australia.
“The Aukus agreement we confirm here in San Diego represents the biggest single investment in Australia’s defence capability in our history,” the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said in San Diego alongside Biden, and the UK’s Rishi Sunak, all three surrounded by their flags.
In the meantime, work will begin to prepare the Osborne shipyard in South Australia for the massive undertaking of building a British-designed submarine featuring US tech, as the longer term solution. Construction is meant to start by the end of this decade, but the first of these Australian-built boats is not likely to be ready for the Royal Australian Navy until the 2040s onwards.
The Australian government was out and about on Tuesday promoting the opportunities created by Aukus: potentially thousands of jobs in the long term, a boost to science and tech knowhow, and the revival of domestic manufacturing. These could well be significant. But the security partnership is also full of risks.
The first relates to the cost. The forecast range of $268bn to $368bn between now and the mid 2050s is a cumulative bill for the entire program – including building up the facilities in Australia, buying the Virginia class subs, building the next-generation British designed submarine, and sustaining them all.
Most of this spending is beyond the first four-year budget period, and the government plays down the cost by saying it equates to 0.15% of gross domestic product a year on average. This submarine program cost is a subset of a Labor pledge to spend, overall, at least 2% of GDP on defence each year. But history tells us the cost of defence acquisitions only ever goes up.
Another risk surrounds the technical complexity of the project, and whether Australia will face difficulties recruiting and training up the naval personnel, other supporting workers and nuclear specialists who will be required to make it a success (and operate the boats safely).
Going for a new design is also inherently risky – although the defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, said on Tuesday the government had sought to reduce that risk by having a delay of a few years between the first submarine entering into the UK’s service and the first one being handed over to the Australian navy.
That is a long way off, so the US and the UK will start rotational deployments of their nuclear-powered submarines to Western Australia from 2027. This will not technically be classified as a “foreign base”, because these submarines are not there permanently, but will be a very visible sign to the region of Aukus ramping up.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of Aukus is the long-term call Australia has made about the strategic circumstances and the intentions of the Chinese government.
The Australian government has been unequivocal that the Australian submarines will be under Australia’s command and control – and only deployed based on sovereign decisions in Canberra. But there is no getting away from the fact Australia will be dependent on the US and the UK for key technology required to make the deal work, and the three countries will be increasingly integrated in their operations.
Aukus reflects the bipartisan consensus between the major Australian political parties that the much bigger risk involves China’s military buildup and intentions, most sharply related to the future of democratically governed Taiwan. Australia is betting (or hoping) that the Aukus deal will contribute to a maintaining “strategic equilibrium” that will deter Beijing from launching military action to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. The calculation is that such military action would be highly destructive to the region as a whole.
