Hugh White: why the AUKUS ‘dream’ was never realistic and is likely to die

The first clear sign the Trump administration was taking a long hard look at AUKUS came two weeks ago, when US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave his first major speech on US strategic policy in Asia at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

In a long presentation that catalogued a host of initiatives with America’s Asian allies, AUKUS was not mentioned once. This was noteworthy, because under the Biden administration, AUKUS was the poster-child for US military engagement in the region, name-checked at every opportunity. Now we understand why.

The Pentagon’s review of AUKUS, announced last week, marks the first time any of the three partners – the US, United Kingdom and Australia – has tested the AUKUS dream against hard military and strategic realities. It is unlikely to survive.

AUKUS was always a long shot, right from the start. That was clear from the moment, back in September 2021, that then prime minister, Scott Morrison, sprung the dream of an Australian nuclear-powered submarine force on an astonished public. For that dream to be realised, a lot of things would have to go right, and most of them were much more likely to go wrong.

But the flaw that now looks set to kill the AUKUS dream is one that was not part of the original plan. The way Morrison and his then defence minister, Peter Dutton, originally conceived it, there would be no need for Australia to acquire US-built Virginia-Class subs in the 2030s before taking delivery of Australian-built subs to replace the Collins-class boats. They were confident that new subs built in Australia, almost certainly to a British design, could be delivered fast enough to enter service as the old Collins subs were being retired, ensuring no gap in our capability.

It only became clear this was not going to work out after Labor took office in 2022, as the new government tried to turn Morrison’s vague idea into a viable project. It soon found there was simply no way to bring new Australian-built nuclear subs into service until long after the Collins boats had to be retired.

To save the AUKUS dream, it was necessary to fill the gap between the retirement of the Collins and the delivery of the first of what we now know as the UK-designed, Australian-built SSN-AUKUS class of submarine. That was when the idea of Australia getting ex-US Navy Virginia class boats first surfaced.

It was a desperate measure that vastly increased the already formidable risks of the whole AUKUS idea. One reason is that it meant the Royal Australian Navy had the almost impossible task of managing and operating not one but two very different kinds of nuclear submarine, powered by two very different nuclear power plants.

For a navy that has struggled to keep the much simpler Collins subs at sea, the task of operating just one class of nuclear-powered subs was truly formidable. To expect it to effectively operate two quite different classes of nuclear submarine simultaneously was frankly absurd.

But there is another reason why the decision to buy Virginia subs to cover the capability gap undermined the viability of the whole AUKUS plan. Very simply, the US has no submarines to spare. The facilities and workforce that build and maintain its submarines have never recovered from the savage cuts imposed in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. No serious steps were taken to rebuild it even after it became clear China had become a formidable new maritime rival. The result is that America’s two submarine construction yards have for many years been delivering barely half as many Virginia-class subs as the Pentagon now says America needs – around 1.2 per year instead of two per year.

This problem was acknowledged when the AUKUS partners announced the detailed plan in 2023. It was optimistically claimed that everything necessary would be done to increase production to the level of 2.3 subs a year required to meet US needs and provide extra boats for Australia.

So far, there is no sign of that happening. Elbridge Colby, the senior US official conducting the Pentagon’s AUKUS review, will almost certainly puncture the irresponsible optimism around this crucial issue and make it clear that unless there is a miracle in US submarine production, America will not be selling any Virginia-class subs to Australia.

But that’s not all. Even if that miracle is achieved, US leaders and officials still have to ask whether it makes sense for America to pass the extra submarines to Australia rather than bring them into service with the US Navy. Any subs sold to Australia weaken America at a time when it is already struggling to match China’s fast-growing navy. So it has always been clear that Washington will only sell us its submarines if it is absolutely certain Australia would commit them to fight if the US goes to war with China.

The Albanese government has never acknowledged it is willing to make that commitment. The Biden administration, desperate for its own reasons to keep the AUKUS dream alive, did not press Canberra on this very sensitive point.

The Trump administration will be much tougher. Colby’s review will also certainly conclude that America should not sell Virginia-class subs to Australia, unless Canberra offers much clearer and more public guarantees that Australia will go to war with China if the US ever does.

For Canberra, this could well be a deal-breaker, making the end of the AUKUS dream. It certainly should be.

Hugh White’s new Quarterly Essay, Hard New World: Our Post-American Future, is published this month.