Nuclear submarines for Australia
Biden is pushing the Aukus alliance
03/08/2023, 7:09 p.m
The security alliance between the US, Great Britain and Australia has angered France – because a submarine deal has collapsed. Instead, Canberra relies on nuclear submarines with US technology. A deal could be announced in Washington next week.
US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are meeting in the US next week and could announce a multi-billion dollar nuclear submarine deal. Sunak’s spokesman confirmed the meeting planned for next Monday to talks about the 2021 security alliance of the three states called Aukus. Albanese had previously announced a trip to the United States.
The three countries established the Aukus Indo-Pacific security alliance in September 2021 as a response to China’s growing dominance in the region. The central component of the alliance is the construction of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia. Australia is expected to acquire eight nuclear submarines for tens of billions of dollars. The talks have been going on for a year and a half now.
The deal is extremely important for Australia because the country itself does not have the know-how to build nuclear submarines. Nuclear-powered submarines can travel great distances and are difficult for the enemy to locate. While the submarines will be nuclear-powered, Australia has ruled out equipping them with nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Albanese has called the submarine deal “the biggest leap” in Australian history in terms of defense capability.
A spokesman for the US Department of Defense told AFP that the partnership aims to “provide Australia with a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine at the earliest opportunity”. With increased deterrence, Allies would “strengthen all our industrial bases, expand our collective capabilities, and share technology like never before.” It is the first time Washington has exported nuclear submarine technology since the 1960s.
Sharp criticism from Beijing
In the course of founding Aukus, Australia had canceled a long-planned multi-billion dollar submarine deal with France. This resulted in outraged reactions from the French government and temporarily severely strained relations in particular between Paris and Washington.
With the Aukus agreement, the USA, Great Britain and Australia want to counteract the increased influence of China in the South Pacific. Australian Prime Minister Albanese warned last year of China’s growing influence in the region. Australia must react to this and increase its commitment in the Pacific region. China, in turn, has sharply criticized the Aukus alliance. The government in Beijing describes it as “dangerous” and an attempt to corner China.
The South Pacific is increasingly becoming the arena of competition between China and the United States. Beijing has been attempting to establish a larger military, political and economic presence in the South Pacific for some time. Most recently, it signed a far-reaching security agreement with the Solomon Islands. The US and Australia have long feared China could set up a military base in the South Pacific. This would allow the Chinese Navy to extend its power far beyond its borders.