AUKUS: A Very Antipodean Stupidity

Call it abandonment, anxiety, or just latent stupidity. The messy goo of feelings and fuzzy notions behind Australia’s most injudicious strategic decision is yielding its nasty harvest. Conceived by paranoid armchair strategists, flabby think tankers and profligate spenders happy to expend other people’s money, the tripartite agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States is rapidly unravelling.

Even during the Biden administration, whose bumbling watch this agreement was hatched under, there were doubts. The ogrish price tag (US$239 billion or A$368 billion) that would be billed to the Australian taxpayer; the absurd time schedules (delivery of nuclear-powered submarines by the 2030s and 2040s); the contingencies and qualifications (Congressional concerns about transferring Virginia Class (SSN-774) submarines to the Royal Australian Navy), all pointed to the fact that Canberra had fallen for a lemon, childishly refusing to taste its stinging bitterness.  

The central point of the tediously named Pillar One of the AUKUS agreement (there is no pillar, one or otherwise), which involves the transfer of US Virginia class boats to the RAN – was always its viability. While President Joe Biden was gradually losing his faculties in the White House, the Congressional Research Service was pertinently noting the obstacles that would face any transfer. The CRS report released on May 22, 2023 was the sort of thing that should have alarmed Australian defence planners, instead of turning them into paid up ostriches dreaming of consultancies. For one thing, it made it clear that Congress was always going to be the one to convince in the matter. “One issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify DOD’s AUKUS-related legislative package for the FY2024 NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] sent to Congress on May 2, 2023.” That package included the authorisation for the transfer of “up to two Virginia-class SSNs to the government of Australia in the form of sale, with the costs of the transfer to be covered by the government of Australia.”

There were also weighty doubts about the “net impact on collective allied deterrence and war fighting capabilities of transferring three to five Virginia-class boats to Australia while pursuing the construction of three to five replacement SSNs for the US Navy.” This is a point that has never gone away. To give, even to an ally, and a perceived advantage yet diminish, however small and fictional, the supposed power of the US submarine fleet, is never going to take place if the annual production of 1.2 Virginia boats remains as it is. Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker was always of the view that “the AUKUS plan would transfer US Virginia-class submarines to a partner nation even before we have met our own Navy’s requirements.”

The fact that the Trump administration is now conducting a review of AUKUS can be seen as a mere formality – for those who think formalities smooth matters. The Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles certainly hopes so, calling it “a completely natural step for an incoming government to take.” That Yankee stronghold of renown in Canberra, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, apes the line with simian consistency: “It’s normal, after a change of government, for a new administration to review existing commitments in the light of new policy priorities: in this case, ‘America First’.”

But nothing about the Trump government is a formality, or any review’s outcome a foregone conclusion. The presence of Undersecretary of Defense Policy Eldridge Colby should be disconcerting to the AUKUS band leaders and comparisons to Britain’s own review of the pact by Sir Stephen Lovegrove should be seen as fantastically distant. “AUKUS,” in Colby’s assessment, “is only going to lead to more submarines collectively in 10, 15, 20 years, which is way beyond the window of maximum danger, which is really this decade.” Putting to one side the warmongering stirring in the latter part of the statement, Colby is certainly not wrong about the time that will elapse before any delivery takes place.

Down under, the strategists are scurrying and fretting, a sight that is proving enormously entertaining. But the political classes have only themselves to blame for this pigsty of a conundrum. As former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull notes with snappy precision, the AUKUS agreement is perfectly positioned for the US to not follow through. It can still stick to the letter of the agreement without having to ever transfer a single submarine to Australia, all the time raking in Australian largesse. “This is because it has always been part of the deal, and part of the US legislation, that the transfer of submarines to Australia is highly conditional.”  

The legislation in question notes that the President will submit to the relevant congressional committees and leadership a certification no later than 270 days prior to the transfer of vessels that the move “will not degrade the United States underseas capabilities”; is consistent with the country’s foreign policy and national security interests and furthers the AUKUS partnership. That furtherance, however, involves the US ensuring “sufficient submarine production and maintenance investments” that will meet undersea capabilities; Australia supplying “appropriate funds and support for the additional capacity required to meet the requirements” under the provisions; and Canberra’s “capability to host and fully operate the vessels authorized to be transferred.”

The latest development in this overpriced show shows it up as a series of fictions: for Australia, the boyish hankering for nuclear powered submarines in the first place; for the United States, the fact that it needs more nuclear armed boats in order to look more ridiculous in having an arsenal it can never use. It was the military industrial complex in full song, nourished by expensive games, dubious scenarios and drab excuses for war.

With Donald Trump in the White House, the Make America Great Again philosophy mushes the terminology of sweet friends and mortal foes, turning it into the mortar of self-interest. Washington’s interests come first, and Australia’s own idiotically misplaced interests are barely visible in the White House situation room. Then again, never ask Australian strategic thinkers about their interests, ever the hostage of governing fears and treasured prejudices.

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