Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are nearing their third year of the most forward-looking and visionary strategic industrial effort since the 1941 Lend-Lease Act, which empowered the US to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed ‘vital to the defense of the United States’. (Australian Strategic Policy Institute The Strategist). Their joint decision, announced in September 2021, to establish the ‘enhanced trilateral security partnership’ known as AUKUS stemmed from a mutual recognition that China’s military build-up and technological advancement present a clear threat to each country.
