Australia can’t afford an AUKUS about-face

Three years have passed since the United States, Australia and United Kingdom announced on September 15, 2021, that they would enter into a security partnership called AUKUS.

A major part of the deal involved the US and UK helping Australia acquire nuclear-propulsion submarines. This decision by the Morrison government controversially entailed backing out of a A$90 billion deal with a French company to purchase 12 submarines.

In recent months, the AUKUS deal has generated a fair amount of criticism from former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull, former foreign minister Gareth Evans, and some in the media.

Critics have focused on five main arguments about AUKUS:

• the pact enhances the prospects of war with China
• Australia doesn’t need nuclear-propulsion submarines
• the deal makes our neighbors in Southeast Asia uneasy
• it drags us back to our Anglosphere past, tying us closely to the US and UK
• the forecast cost of the submarines, between A$268 (US$180.2 billion) and A$368 billion, is unconscionably high.

Yet, each of these claims is based on assertions that miss the point. Here’s why.

1. AUKUS increases the likelihood of war

Some critics argue that by acquiring nuclear-propulsion submarines, Australia will support a more belligerent posture by the US towards China, notably over Taiwan. And this makes war more likely.

This, however, belies American awareness of its own limitations and the risks such a provocative approach would entail.

Others argue that AUKUS encourages a military-industrial complex that ostensibly makes Australia more of a dependent – rather than independent – ally to the US. And this denies Australian agency in regional or global security affairs.

But this bleak interpretation, again, sees a