2 days ago
What's the alternative? The many AUKUS questions the PM must answer
The AUKUS submarine program, announced in September 2021, is the most complex defence project in this nation's history, costing an estimated $368 billion over the next 30 years. But though delivery of vessels is still many years away, it has already reshaped Australia.
Its most obvious effect is on our national purse. A report in April by the Strategic Analysis Australia think tank put spending on the submarines over the next four years at $17.3 billion, compared to the Royal Australian Air Force's capital budget of $12.7 billion. Writing in that report, defence economist Marcus Hellyer said the proposed outlay made the submarine program effectively a fourth branch of the Defence forces, adding: 'It's hard to grasp how unusual this situation is.'
AUKUS has also altered our place in the world of scientific and technological research, with the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill, passed last year, eliminating defence trade barriers between the three signatories while putting a question mark over our future collaborations with states outside the agreement.
The most difficult change to measure is in our foreign policy and military posture. While Defence Minister Richard Marles has insisted the deal as signed does not tie us into any US war over Taiwan, our international editor, Peter Hartcher, has described the Morrison government's decision to seek US nuclear submarines as 'Australia … choosing sides emphatically' in Washington's rivalry with Beijing.
As Hartcher noted in his May 2022 account of those talks, Scott Morrison opted not to take then opposition leader Anthony Albanese into his confidence, presenting him with a fait accompli on the eve of the deal's announcement. At the time, the Biden administration was anxious to ensure AUKUS had bipartisan backing in Canberra. Today the boot is very much on the other foot.
The revelation this week of a review into whether AUKUS meets Donald Trump's 'America First' criteria, led by US defence undersecretary Elbridge Colby, who has styled himself an 'AUKUS agnostic', comes as Albanese heads for North America and a probable first meeting with the US president.
It is an event without any of the guardrails of normal diplomacy. From the imposition of his 'Liberation Day' tariff regime to belittling and berating foreign leaders in the Oval Office, Trump's transactional approach leaves everyone guessing.
Loading
Is the Pentagon's AUKUS review just standard operating procedure, as Albanese's ministers insist? Or is it a lever to force increased defence spending by Canberra, something both Colby and his boss, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, have called for? Will it be tied to a change in the terms of trade between our two nations? Or is it, as shadow defence minister Angus Taylor suggested this week, linked to bringing us back into line with Washington on policy towards Israel?
