A US military commander says he has “no idea” how Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines will be used in the Taiwan Strait, despite a top state department official predicting “enormous implications” for “cross-Strait circumstances”.
Lt Gen Stephen Sklenka, the deputy commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, played down the potential for Australia to be drawn into a devastating war in the region against the Australian government’s wishes, The Guardian reports.
“At least from the military perspective, there is no expectation of anybody participating in any conflict with us, because those decisions are national sovereign decisions,” Sklenka said during a visit to Australia.
“We don’t dictate that to other countries.”
The deputy US secretary of state, Kurt Campbell, one of the architects of Aukus, said last month the security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US could “change the nature of the way each of our three countries operate together”.
Campbell said Aukus had “the potential to have submarines from a number of countries operating in close coordination that could deliver conventional ordnance from long distances”, adding: “Those have enormous implications in a variety of scenarios, including in cross-Strait circumstances.”
Sklenka, who works with Australia and other allies in the region as a leader of the US Indo-Pacific Command, was asked on Thursday what role he envisaged for Aukus submarines in the Taiwan Strait.
“Look, Secretary Campbell is a policy guy and I’m not,” Sklenka told the National Press Club in Canberra.
“I have no idea. I can’t answer that.”
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