{"id":2132,"date":"2023-09-20T15:15:34","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T14:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/?p=2132"},"modified":"2023-09-20T15:15:34","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T14:15:34","slug":"why-aukus-is-here-to-stay-despite-looming-roadblocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/2023\/09\/20\/why-aukus-is-here-to-stay-despite-looming-roadblocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Why AUKUS is here to stay, despite looming roadblocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Srdjan Vucetic<\/a> is Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, L\u2019Universit\u00e9 d\u2019Ottawa\/University of Ottawa. This blog was originally published<\/a> by The Conversation<\/a> on 17 September 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n

AUKUS<\/a>\u00a0is a defence agreement among Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States designed to deter Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific region.<\/p>\n

The agreement both reflects and reinforces larger strategic shifts in\u00a0the region<\/a>\u00a0and beyond<\/a>. It\u2019s a long game, something the world should keep in mind as the two-year-old pact faces multiple political complications in U.S. Congress.<\/p>\n

Dubbed \u201cthe most important security alliance America has forged in decades<\/a>\u201d by a Democratic congressman, AUKUS actually arose from an Australian idea to bring the three countries\u2019 defence industries closer together.<\/p>\n

Two pillars<\/h2>\n

The partnership is set up into\u00a0two pillars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pillar 1 deals with the transfer of\u00a0nuclear submarine technology<\/a>\u00a0among the partners, with an eye on developing and producing a fleet of nuclear-powered \u201cAUKUS submarines\u201d for use by both the British Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy.<\/p>\n

Details are still to come about AUKUS Pillar 2 and its focus areas: other advanced (but non-nuclear) defence technologies such as hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.<\/p>\n

The pact is promising a\u00a0series of megaprojects<\/a>\u00a0in a technical sense \u2014 massive, complex ventures that could take decades to complete and cost billions of dollars. It\u2019s also pledging sustained joint involvement of diverse ministries and public agencies \u2014 a whole-of-government approach \u2014 among all three nations.<\/p>\n

For the partnership to begin to work as advertised, U.S. lawmakers in Congress must first pass three key authorizations. One is an\u00a0exemption for Australia and the U.K. from Washington\u2019s export control regime<\/a>\u00a0so that sensitive defence technologies can be shared more swiftly.<\/p>\n

The other two authorizations involve\u00a0the sale of Virginia-class submarines to Australia and Australian participation in the American submarine industrial base<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On this front, the key roadblock is a group of Senate Republicans who want Congress to put \u201cAmerica first,\u201d meaning investing more money in U.S. submarine producers so they can more easily absorb the AUKUS deal.<\/p>\n

The spectre of Trump<\/h2>\n

Given they were so predictable<\/a>, these legislative snarls aren\u2019t fatal to the pact and will likely be resolved sooner than some observers think.<\/p>\n

But what about a Donald Trump \u2014 or Trumpist \u2014 comeback in 2024?<\/p>\n

The stakes of the 2024 presidential election are high. The possibility of civil disorder is real, as is a sharp turn towards authoritarianism. In foreign policy, more Trumpism would mean more quasi-isolationism and a great deal more unilateralism, possibly including\u00a0withdrawing support<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0Ukraine and NATO<\/a>\u00a0against Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia.<\/p>\n

Yet even in this extreme scenario, AUKUS would likely survive. Few causes today unite the U.S. political class \u2014 from traditional Republicans to MAGA-style populists to many Democrats \u2014 as effectively as opposition to the rise of China.<\/p>\n

Add to this a long-standing bipartisan desire for the strongest possible military, and there\u2019s good reason to expect continued investment in the trilateral partnership as a means of countering Beijing\u2019s\u00a0bid to expand its sphere of influence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.K. and Australia will stay the course too.<\/p>\n

The main Australian political parties are\u00a0united<\/a>\u00a0in boosting the pact\u2019s benefits while minimizing its\u00a0risks and costs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the U.K., where the\u00a0Labour party is likely<\/a>\u00a0to win the next election, AUKUS is solid because it fulfils the\u00a0country\u2019s long-standing<\/a>\u00a0foreign policy goals: a\u00a0\u201cspecial relationship\u201d<\/a>\u00a0with the U.S. and meaningful contribution to\u00a0global security<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wider support<\/h2>\n

Importantly, support for AUKUS is not confined to the three member states.\u00a0Japan<\/a>, Singapore, South Korea, the Philippines and\u00a0Taiwan<\/a>\u00a0have all welcomed the pact as a counterweight to China. The same goes\u00a0for Canada<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0New Zealand<\/a>, both of which are already in the intelligence-pooling\u00a0Five Eyes partnership<\/a>\u00a0with AUKUS nations.<\/p>\n

In fact, now that American officials are touting Pillar 2\u2019s\u00a0\u201copen door\u201d<\/a>\u00a0policy, some of these countries \u2014\u00a0including France<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 could soon be lining up to join the trilateral policy process in one way or another.<\/p>\n

Wind in the sails of the trilateral partnership is also\u00a0blowing in from India<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rather than voicing loud concerns about nuclear non-proliferation and regional arms races, India tacitly supports the partnership. This is crucial for the pact because the\u00a0strategically non-aligned<\/a>\u00a0India has considerable power to make or break any U.S.-led strategy to deter China.<\/p>\n

An aspect of this influence is on display in Ukraine:\u00a0India\u2019s unwillingness to join western sanctions against Russia<\/a>\u00a0is one of the reasons why Putin continues to wage his war.<\/p>\n

The region\u2019s other major players, including key\u00a0Association of Southeast Asian Nations<\/a>\u00a0states like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, are much more wary about the pact. Yet the accelerating U.S.-China rivalry may push them to make a choice.<\/p>\n

Just a few days ago, we saw this process at work in Hanoi, where U.S. President Joe Biden and his Vietnamese hosts held a news conference to remind the world that former foes can become strategic partners of the\u00a0\u201chighest tier.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

AUKUS certainly faces political challenges right now, and the next year may bring even deeper problems. And since it deals with so many megaprojects, its implementation will always be difficult.<\/p>\n

However, big-picture geopolitical realities suggest AUKUS is here to stay.<\/p>\n

Disclosure statement: This article follows from a special issue Srdjan Vucetic guest-edited in International Journal, which in turn is based on a conference held in 2022 at the University of Ottawa's Center for International Policy Studies for which the author received a grant from the MINDS program of Canada's Department of National Defence.<\/em><\/p>\n

This blog was originally published<\/a> by The Conversation. All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the IPR, nor of the University of Bath.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Srdjan Vucetic is Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, L\u2019Universit\u00e9 d\u2019Ottawa\/University of Ottawa. This blog was originally published by The Conversation on 17 September 2023. AUKUS\u00a0is a defence agreement among Australia, the United Kingdom and the...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1790,"featured_media":2133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-and-defence"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/115\/2023\/09\/AUKUS.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1790"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}