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Australia
This Week in AsiaOpinion
Hugh White
Hugh White

Opinion | The Aukus gamble: can Australia rely on US alliance to secure its future in Asia amid rising China?

  • Australia’s ruling Labor Party is still clinging to the idea of a US-led global order, despite criticism of the risks and cost of Aukus project
  • But doubts are now growing about whether Aukus can boost Australian maritime capabilities, and wider implications for nuclear non-proliferation regime

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Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) with US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Point Loma naval base in San Diego on March 13, 2023. Photo: Pool via AP
Hugh White
Eighteen months ago, Australians were stunned when they learned of the Aukus proposal for their country to build nuclear-powered submarines. An initiative of such scale and audacity seemed almost to defy critique and analysis.
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But that began to change last month when the leaders of the United States, Britain and Australia gathered in San Diego to announce the broad outline of how this massive project would work. They revealed a plan of immense complexity and staggering cost, beset by a host of technological, economic, political, strategic and diplomatic risks. Suddenly, questions are being raised.

Some of the most searching questions come from within Australia’s governing Labor Party, led by elder statesman Paul Keating, who has excoriated the present Labor leadership for its swift and eager embrace of the A$368 billion (US$248 billion) Aukus project.

There are two reasons for Labor’s rather surprising embrace of Aukus. One of them is pure politics. Like many centre-left parties around the world, Labor fears it will lose votes if it seems soft on national security, and has fervently backed Aukus to avoid such criticisms from its conservative opponents.

Many Labor figures are also deeply committed to Australia’s alliance with the US, and they understand that this is what Aukus is really all about.

The present generation of party leadership came of age politically in the optimistic “End of History” 1990s, when preponderant US power seemed to guarantee a long era of peace.

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They still retain that era’s faith in the idea of a US-led global order, despite the obvious challenges it now faces, especially from China. The stronger and more ambitious China has become, the more fervently they cling to the idea that only American power can protect Australia from Beijing. To them, this is what Aukus seemed to promise.

But now the doubts are setting in. First, there are questions about whether the programme to replace Australia’s existing Collins-class conventional submarines with nuclear-powered boats will actually work. The plan for Australia to buy up to five second-hand US Virginia-class submarines from the early 2030s might fall through for any number of reasons.

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