UK view of AUKUS debate in Australia

Communication was initially one of the bigger issues for AUKUS, particularly Pillar I. Shrouded in secrecy, all three members had some degree of international diplomatic reassurance to conduct after the agreement was announced, with Indo-Pacific nations in particular questioning the impact it would have on regional stability. (From Britain’s world.)

Within the domestic contexts of the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK), there was much less inquisition, which makes sense given the history the two have with operating nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) and committing large sums to their maintenance and modernisation. This was not the case in Australia, where a rigorous debate erupted almost immediately, and continues today.

Communication issues are again bubbling to the top of the AUKUS cauldron, this time with a domestic and seemingly Australian focus. The brash and unpredictable nature of Donald Trump, President of the US, has emboldened those in Australia critical of the agreement, with the frequency of such voices escalating in national newspapers and online platforms in tandem with a lack of an official counter-narrative, or even general narrative, for AUKUS’ impetus and merit. This has been compounded by the recent announcement that the US will conduct a review of AUKUS. In continuing to drive AUKUS forwards, His Majesty’s (HM) Government should become more attuned to the Australian debate – especially around Pillar I – and work closer with Canberra in formulating and employing an effective narrative for the impetus behind, and updates regarding the direction of, AUKUS. Given Britain’s history with these highly-sensitive capabilities, and creative appointment of a ‘Special AUKUS Representative’, it is in a good position to collaborate on this issue.

The AUKUS debate in Australia centres roughly around five main points:

1. Whether or not AUKUS ‘locks Australia in’ to the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy and any obligations this may entail, such as being drawn into a conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC);

2. Whether or not the US and UK are reliable Indo-Pacific partners working towards a similar vision for the region as Australia;

3. Whether or not Australia should be seeking its next-generation defence capabilities from the US and UK, given the existing problems with the defence industrial bases of the two countries;

4. What other defence capabilities Australia could acquire with the earmarked AU$368 billion (£177 billion) and whether they would serve Australia’s defence interests better than the planned acquisitions through AUKUS; and

5. What the impact of the nuclear waste and material resulting from the submarines on Australia’s sensitive ecosystem, and environmental record generally, could be.

To be sure, there are merits to each of the above arguments. But the Australian debate is at times conducted with such intellectual and conceptual freedom that it strays into the unhelpful, if not the hysterical. Outlandish claims such as ‘…Australia does not need any crewed warships or submarines at all’ make their way into well-read publications such as The Guardian, with such material even then pushed by a former Australian prime minister.

A programme of such scale and ambition was always going to generate keen interest from the foreign and defence policy community, especially from the country which stands to lose the most if the agreement were to fall apart, or if political will for it was watered down significantly. However, the fact that combatting such positions effectively was not factored into the Australian – and indeed collective – approach to AUKUS from the outset is an oversight which should be rectified.

So, why should HM Government care about this ongoing debate in Australia? Put frankly, because Britain stands to gain the most from AUKUS relative to the risk it has taken on. With or without AUKUS, HM Government would be pursuing a next-generation SSN to replace its Astute class submarines. The fact that Canberra opted for the British design for its future SSN will bring a number of significant economic and military benefits to the UK; Australian involvement is not vital, but it is a very welcome boost, and one which Britain should ensure it maintains.

Many of the components and subsystems used, including the nuclear reactors, will be built in the UK, providing a sizeable economic boon across the country. Perhaps more significant than the economic gain will be that Australia’s order of ‘SSN-AUKUS’ submarines will drive down unit costs. This will help the Ministry of Defence, which is facing competing priorities and battling a Treasury obsessed with fiscal constraints (some real and some self-imposed), to order more. This could eventually see the Royal Navy’s fleet of SSNs expand from seven to up to 12 – the aspiration outlined in the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) – the largest it will have been since the end of the Cold War. A similar knock-on effect is that the infrastructure available to maintain Britain’s SSN fleet will be greatly expanded with a common design in use in Australia.

Recent foreign and defence policy decisions made by HM Government demonstrate the effect which their choice of words, or in some cases lack of them, can have on the debate in Australia. The over-emphasis on a ‘NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organisation] First’ defence posture amplified the voices of Australia’s AUKUS critics and caused some nerves across the political and defence communities in Canberra. To Canberra, AUKUS is much more than simply a defence industrial programme. A significant part of the programme will require American and British submarines to cover Australia in the late 2020s while the current, ageing Collins class boats are retired. It is important for HM Government to remember that to Canberra, geostrategic ‘skin in the game’ in the Indo-Pacific is one of the underlying assumptions under which AUKUS functions.

Updating rhetoric with ‘not NATO only’ in the recently published SDR, as well as going ahead with the Carrier Strike Group 2025 deployment to the region, represent a good start at allaying any concerns. But, in both word and deed, HM Government needs to grip this problem more urgently, and understand that AUKUS-related movements in London may have an outsized impact in Canberra.

The solution is not about playing whack-a-mole with opposing views – an informed, even if highly polarised, national debate is preferable to none at all. Australia needs a narrative at the official level which explains, without hyperbole or diminishing the circumstances which contributed to the formation of AUKUS, why Australia has decided to take this path, and why it has decided to do so with the UK and US. This will not be a silver bullet; those allergic to the gargantuan sum of money or strategic logic behind an Australian SSN acquisition will be unlikely to change tact. However, those who are less informed, or less aware in general, will be less likely to be funnelled to incorrect, misleading information which weakens public and political support for the agreement.

Britain’s appointment of a ‘Special AUKUS Envoy’ to aid HM Government to ‘drive [AUKUS] forward’ and ‘identify barriers to success’ is an idea Australia should seriously consider emulating. A single-issue AUKUS appointment is appropriate for the scale and ambition of the partnership. The narrative element of AUKUS would undoubtedly fall within their portfolio, one which would explicitly not have a political element and focus on educating people inside and outside of government on AUKUS. It would not be the first instance of Sir Keir Starmer’s (Prime Minister of the UK) Labour and Anthony Albanese’s (Prime Minister of Australia) Labor imitating one another.

For Britain’s part, it should invest greater time and effort in understanding the AUKUS narrative in Australia. Indeed, affording more effort to understanding domestic contexts driving state-level demands in the Indo-Pacific is something which the UK has been doing in earnest, and to great benefit since the Integrated Review Refresh of 2023; a position which was re-emphasised in the SDR. This momentum, and effort, should be applied to Australia; the oft-touted shared history and shared values should not be a substitute for shared understanding. This will allow Britain to adjust its rhetoric at home, and in Australia when necessary, to the overall benefit of AUKUS.

Another issue bubbling under the surface of AUKUS is how Pillar II – collaboration on the development of new military technologies – has struggled to generate any real traction. Greater communications clarity on AUKUS would go some way in driving Pillar II forwards by fostering cohesion around its scope, direction and method of achieving deliverables. Ultimately, this drive for clarity will have to decide whether Pillar II is more about defence industrial regulation or funded programmes (or both), something which is currently unclear.

These efforts, if sufficiently coordinated, would also have the latent benefit of presenting a far more united front between the UK and Australia to an unpredictable American administration, which has not made its exact feelings regarding AUKUS clear. This is of even greater merit given AUKUS is currently under review in the US, a process which has already been undertaken in Britain and Australia.

But this is all not about the UK and Australia achieving greater American purchase for AUKUS; it is about the two nations taking the reins of the agreement themselves, driving it forwards for their national interests and deepening their bilateral relationship even further as a result.

William Freer is a Research Fellow in National Security at the Council on Geostrategy.

Patrick Triglavcanin is a Research Assistant at the UWA Defence and Security Institute and an Associate Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy.