Hypothesis is swirling round the way forward for the A$368 billion AUKUS settlement, following Washington’s determination to overview the nuclear submarine deal to make sure it meets President Donald Trump’s “America first” agenda.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was planning to make use of talks with Trump on the G7 to demand the US proceed to again the deal – however the assembly has been cancelled.
With the Pentagon taking one other have a look at AUKUS, we ask 5 specialists whether or not the federal government ought to rethink Australia’s personal dedication to the pact.
Jennifer Parker
Knowledgeable Affiliate, Nationwide Safety School, Australian Nationwide College
Completely not. One other overview would devour time and capability higher spent delivering AUKUS on its tight timelines.
To know why, we should put the choice in context.
The leaked particulars of the US Department of Defense review doesn’t alter the place of any of the three AUKUS partners. A lot of the commentary has missed the broader image: Washington is enterprise its common overview of defence technique.
Usually carried out each 4 years, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth lately introduced the 2026 model can be introduced ahead to August 2025, with Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby main the method.
It is sensible the Pentagon would additionally assess AUKUS – a central ingredient of its Indo-Pacific posture.
Whereas some have fixated on Colby’s supposed scepticism, the truth is totally different. In March, Colby advised the US Senate Armed Companies Committee the US ought to do everything in its power to make AUKUS work.
Why now? As a result of the technique overview is being accelerated underneath the brand new administration. As for the leak, it’s believable it was designed to apply pressure to Australia over its defence spending commitments.
The extra essential query is: what’s the possible consequence? Whereas nothing is for certain, AUKUS enjoys sturdy bipartisan assist within the US, because it does in Australia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has referred to as it a “blueprint” for cooperation, echoed by different senior officers.
Crucially, the actual driver of this so-called “America First” overview is what the US will get out of AUKUS. The reply is rather a lot. It secures entry to Southeast and Northeast Asia from a location past the vary of most Chinese language missiles, provides a fourth upkeep web site for Virginia-class submarines, and delivers an ally with an impartial nuclear-powered submarine industrial base.
Past AUKUS, Australia has expanded its support for Marine and bomber rotations and different posture initiatives. Australia is central to US technique within the Indo-Pacific. They want us as a lot as we want them. All indicators level to a constructive consequence from this quick, sharp overview.
Whereas AUKUS carries dangers and Australia should stay clear-eyed, alarmism is unhelpful. A lot of the general public debate has taken that tone. Nothing basic has modified for the reason that optimum pathway was announced in 2023. The dangers we face now had been recognized then.
There isn’t any foundation for an Australian overview at this level. It will solely distract from delivering this bold program. If core assumptions materially change, then a overview could also be warranted. However till then, such discuss is a distraction.
Albert Palazzo
Adjunct Professor within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at UNSW Canberra, UNSW Sydney
The AUKUS review must be welcomed by all Australians as a possibility for the Albanese authorities to scrap the settlement and wean itself off US dependency.
The overview is an opportunity for our political leaders to train their most essential accountability: asserting the nation’s sovereignty and equipping Australia to supply for its nationwide safety by itself.
Since AUKUS already accommodates clauses the US may use to cancel the pact, a termination now would profit Australia. It will save the nation huge sums of money, and drive the federal government to formulate a extra helpful and applicable safety coverage.
Elbridge Colby has previously questioned the logic of “gifting away” America’s “crown jewels”, specifically its nuclear-powered submarines, and argued the US will want all its boats in opposition to China.
Extra alarmingly, in his e-book The Strategy of Denial, Colby concludes the best manner for the US to disclaim China regional hegemony is to make use of its allies to minimise its personal “dangers, dedication and expense”. Moreover, he says the US must retain the chance to stroll away from a China battle if that proves to be in America’s finest curiosity.
Colby’s monitor report suggests he’ll suggest Australia make a bigger navy contribution to the alliance — as his boss Pete Hegseth demanded on the Shangri-La Dialogue. That is even because the US reserves its proper to abandon us at a time of its personal selecting, as the UK did throughout the second world conflict with the Singapore Strategy.
At one time, the prevailing defence coverage of reliance on the US made a level of sense. However that’s not the case. As an alternative, Australia’s leaders have a possibility to recalibrate defence coverage from one among dependency to one among self-defence.
As I define in my forthcoming e-book, The Big Fix, Australia ought to undertake the philosophy of “strategic defensive”. It is a method of waging war by which the defender solely wants to stop an aggressor from attaining its goals.
This may get rid of the dangers and large value of AUKUS whereas securing the nation’s future. A strategic defensive method is nicely inside Australia’s capabilities to implement by itself.
Whereas it might be an ironic act of dependency if the US was to avoid wasting Australia from itself by both cancelling AUKUS or by making it too unpalatable to swallow, the prospect to rethink shouldn’t be missed.
AUKUS stays an affront to Australian sovereignty.
Lucas Kock/AAP
Ian Langford
Govt Director, Safety & Defence PLuS and Professor, UNSW Sydney
Australia shouldn’t stroll away from AUKUS in gentle of the Pentagon’s newly introduced overview. Nonetheless, it ought to seize the second to extend defence spending to satisfy short-term challenges not addressed by the submarine deal.
Regardless of the noise, AUKUS stays Australia’s most simple path to buying nuclear-powered submarines, deepening strategic interoperability with the USA and United Kingdom, and embedding itself within the superior defence expertise ecosystems of its closest allies.
However clinging to AUKUS with out confronting the deeper dangers it now exposes can be a strategic mistake. From an Australian perspective, the submarine pathway is on a gradual fuse: first deliveries usually are not anticipated until the early 2030s.
In the meantime, the danger of main energy battle within the Indo-Pacific is accelerating, with a potential flashpoint involving China and the US as early as 2027. Naval brinkmanship within the Taiwan Strait and the South and East China Seas is already routine.
Submarines that arrive too late do little to form the strategic steadiness within the subsequent 5 years. Canberra should due to this fact confront a tough fact: AUKUS might improve Australia’s deterrence posture within the 2030s, but it surely does little to arrange the ADF for a near-term fight.
That battle, ought to it come, will demand capabilities the ADF presently lacks in adequate amount: long-range missiles, deployable air defence, survivable command and management, and extra floor combatants.
But underneath present spending plans, Australia is attempting to fund each the AUKUS construct and short-term deterrence inside a constrained finances. It won’t work. Even after current will increase, defence spending stays round 2% of GDP. That is nicely under the extent wanted to fund each long-term deterrence and rapid readiness.
With no step change – nearer to 2.5–3% of GDP – or a serious reprioritisation of big-ticket packages, the ADF faces a dangerous capability gap by way of the second half of this decade.
Nor can Australia afford to disregard its underinvestment within the uneven instruments of recent warfare, together with cyber capabilities and space-based surveillance.
Australia ought to maintain agency on AUKUS. The strategic upside is actual, and the alliance commitments it reinforces are indispensable. However we must always not faux it’s cost-free.
Except the defence finances is considerably expanded, AUKUS dangers hollowing out the remainder of the Defence Drive. The end result can be a future submarine fleet paired with an underpowered ADF, unready to satisfy the threats of right now.
In reaffirming AUKUS, Australia should confront the complicated actuality that it received’t deal with the threats of this decade, and will plan accordingly.
Maria Rost Rublee
Professor, Worldwide Relations Social and Political Sciences, The College of Melbourne
Let’s be sincere – Australia is just not going to withdraw from AUKUS.
The US is our most essential navy and diplomatic accomplice; within the phrases of the 2024 National Defence Strategy, “our alliance with the US stays basic to Australia’s nationwide safety”.
Unilaterally extracting ourselves from AUKUS would considerably injury our relationship with the US. Given the bipartisan and public support for the alliance inside Australia, it merely received’t occur.
As we navigate the complexities of AUKUS underneath Trump 2.0, we must always keep in mind that as a defence industrial settlement, AUKUS creates quite a few advantages for Australia. In each Pillar I (nuclear submarines) and Pillar II (superior defence capabilities), Australia is growing deep partnerships, collaboration and even integration with each the US and the UK in shipbuilding, superior expertise, and stronger provide chains.
As well as, a not often mentioned good thing about AUKUS is the overall life-cycle local weather impacts, given nuclear submarines are superior to diesel alternate options. Diesel is a non-renewable power supply with important global warming potential, whereas nuclear energy is mostly acknowledged to be low-carbon.
Nonetheless, AUKUS does supply very significant risks for Australia.
Flexibility is baked into the association for the three accomplice nations – resulting in the very state of affairs we’re in right now. There are important issues Washington might not promote nuclear Virginia-class submarines to Australia within the 2030s, as agreed.
We’ve recognized for years the US is not producing enough nuclear assault submarines for its personal home use, however we appear to have hoped this may change or the US would promote us the subs anyway.
The present US overview of AUKUS makes it clear Australia must suppose severely about different choices for submarines. With out the Virginia-class, we can be with none subs in any respect, at the very least till the SSN-AUKUS submarines are delivered by the mid-2040s.
Our present ageing Collins-class subs, already beset with operational problems, won’t be match for objective a lot previous mid-2030. At this level, the most definitely viable possibility is off-the-shelf typical submarines from Japan or South Korea.
The very fact is, whereas Australia is unlikely to withdraw from AUKUS, the US might drive the problem by refusing to promote us its nuclear-powered submarines. Refusing to acknowledge this doesn’t change the dangers.

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David Andrews
Senior Supervisor, Coverage & Engagement, Australian Nationwide College
I need AUKUS to succeed. It affords a singular alternative to considerably improve Australia’s maritime capabilities with entry to world-leading submarine expertise and a collection of superior and rising applied sciences.
Nonetheless, we can’t realistically pursue “AUKUS at any value”. There have to be an higher restrict to how a lot time, effort and sources are dedicated earlier than the prices – monetary, political and strategic – outweigh the potential long-term advantages.
In fact, the federal government should not be hasty. Any determination ought to wait till the completion of the US overview. Likewise, AUKUS shouldn’t be deserted merely as a result of it’s being reviewed.
Critiques usually are not inherently destructive processes. A overview after 4 years of a venture of this measurement and significance is just not a very shocking growth. As seen in the UK, critiques can refocus efforts and commit better sources, if wanted.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem like that’s what the US overview is getting down to do. Fairly, it’s centered on making certain AUKUS is aligned with the America First agenda. That signifies an altogether totally different set of concerns.
Folks typically describe Trump as a “dealmaker” or “transactional”, however these are deceptive euphemisms. This overview, and up to date language from senior US officers, gives the look of a shakedown – of coercion, not partnership.
As with tariffs, this doesn’t really feel like “the act of a friend”.
The necessity to “win” and extract cash from alliances is antithetical to their objective. It misunderstands their nature and the elemental significance of belief between companions. AUKUS is just not an ATM.
Previous behaviour suggests no deal Trump makes will final with out additional calls for being imposed. No sum of money is more likely to be passable. Even when Australia’s defence spending was lifted to 3.5% of GDP, the query can be “why isn’t it 5%?” For AUKUS, there isn’t any such factor as a proposal he can’t refuse.
I don’t say this calmly, but when the end result of this course of is a collection of gratuitous or untenable calls for by the US, the Albanese authorities ought to strongly contemplate strolling away from AUKUS.
The implications can be important, so the brink of such a choice would must be equally calibrated. However no single venture must be put above the integrity of our wider defence enterprise and the sovereign decision-making of our authorities.