​AUKUS is deeper than

just submarines
Nuclear-powered submarines for
Australia was the most eye-
catching part of the
announcement of ‘AUKUS’, the new
trilateral security initiative joining
Australia, the United Kingdom and
the United States. The eight new
boats would greatly extend the
range, endurance and firepower of
Australia’s submarine fleet. They
would break the taboo against
nuclear power in Australia. And
they show that the United States
and the United Kingdom are
committed to strategic
competition in the Indo-Pacific.But
while AUKUS shows a seriousness
about naval power, it shows an
even greater seriousness about
alliances. The trilateral initiative
seeks to expand an existing
alliance structure — the Five Eyes
intelligence alliance — into the
field of leading-edge defence
technology and industry. AUKUS
goes much deeper than
submarines — but it cannot do
everything.

The Biden administration

promised to prioritise strategic
competition with China, and to
reinvigorate Washington’s
alliances. Progress on this has
been positive, but incremental.
Aside from some high-level visits,
Biden’s most notable initiative was
elevating the Quad — comprising
Australia, India, Japan and the
United States — to the summit
level.
AUKUS is qualitatively different.
The submarine deal alone
enmeshes the United States and
United Kingdom into the region for
decades. But more ambitiously,
beyond submarines, AUKUS seeks
to win the technology competition
with China by pooling resources
and integrating supply chains for
defence-related science, industry,
and supply chains. This will be the
decades-long and multifaceted
purpose of AUKUS — a
transnational project racing to
seize advantages in artificial
intelligence, quantum computing
and cyber technology.
This kind of technology
integration is a radical idea.
Countries often share military
technology, but some technologies
are more highly prized than
others. Nuclear technology is in a
class of its own. The United States
has only shared its nuclear
submarine technology with the
United Kingdom — at the height of
the Cold War. The United States is
now so animated by competition
with China that it will share the
technology with one more country,
Australia, for the first time in
decades.
The technologies at the heart of
AUKUS are at the cutting edge of
scientific research, and promise to
deliver unprecedented advantages
in military power. The submarine
project will likely serve as a
forcing function to drive much of
this new collaboration. It is still
unclear how much of the
submarines’ nuclear propulsion
technology will be shared with
Australia, but the Australian
defence community will almost
certainly gain access to the
submarines’ other state-of-the-art
technologies, including sensors
and data-processing systems for
maritime domain awareness and
tracking and evading adversary
forces. 
What makes the United Kingdom
and Australia Washington’s most
valued technology partners? They
are members of the Five Eyes
intelligence alliance, which over
decades has developed joint
systems, organisations and
processes for sharing collection
responsibilities and intelligence
data.

Less tangibly, but at least as

importantly, this has cultivated
mutual trust and habits of
cooperation, including through the
past two decades combating
terrorism and fighting wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Compared to the
other Five Eyes members, Canada
and New Zealand, the United
Kingdom and Australia are also
demonstrably more committed to
upholding the strategic vision of a
free and open Indo-Pacific.
AUKUS’s radical integration could
only be possible among Five Eyes
partners because AUKUS will be
working on extremely sensitive
intelligence-related technologies
that Washington would only
entrust to its closest intelligence
partners. AUKUS’s stated
technology priorities — artificial
intelligence, quantum computing
and cyber — are technologies that
are at the forefront of emerging
intelligence capabilities. Little
wonder that several Australian
intelligence chiefs have been front
and centre explaining AUKUS to
Australia’s other strategic
partners.

This is probably also why France

was excluded from the grouping,
prompting a sudden and ugly
diplomatic spat. Despite its
likeminded interests in the region,
and despite its military power and
activism, France does not share
the systems and relationships that
define the Five Eyes. In the years
to come, AUKUS will gain greater
regional acceptance and utility if it
figures out how to share some of
its prized defence technology and
data with other partners,
including France and others in the
region.
AUKUS may represent the closest
integration among partners, but it
cannot do everything, and it
cannot replace other groupings.
The region requires a new security
architecture, but unlike Cold War
umbrellas like NATO, this
architecture will comprise
multiple, overlapping groupings,
each with different roles and
strengths. AUKUS’s technology-
sharing mission is invaluable, but
it is limited.

Different groupings serve

different purposes. The Quad will
remain critical for coordinating
the strategic policies of China’s
most powerful regional
competitors, for presenting a
common vision of regional order,
and for acting as the nucleus for
broader cooperation when needed.
At its first in-person summit last
week, the Quad reiterated its
broad vision of promoting a free
and open Indo-Pacific. And as the
Indian government recently
declared, AUKUS does not compete
with or undermine the Quad.
Other partners like France and
India cannot be full members of
AUKUS, but they are indispensable
in other roles that AUKUS cannot
replicate. They each have
significant military power,
valuable geographic advantages
and abiding networks of influence.
And they are each vigorously
engaged in the region, including
through bilateral and trilateral
partnerships with Australia.

The members of AUKUS should

therefore work hard to repair
their relationships with France
because broad overlapping
partnerships are a key asset in
strategic competition with China.
But not all regional challenges
require a broad, inclusive
approach. AUKUS’s declared
objectives are radical — unseen in
the firmament of US alliances, and
certainly unseen in the region —
and only possible precisely
because the initiative is so
exclusive.
NOW COME TO THE MAIN
EXTREMITY 
How Does AUKUS adds fuel to the
South China Sea dispute 
It has been a difficult couple of
years for Southeast Asia’s South
China Sea-claimant countries.
While they have been struggling to
deal with vaccine diplomacy and
manage the COVID-19 pandemic,
China has been accused of taking
advantage of the situation by
becoming increasingly assertive in
the disputed areas.
During the pandemic, manoeuvres
by the China Coast Guard and even
People’s Liberation Army Navy
(PLAN) have provoked Vietnam,
Malaysia, the Philippines and
Indonesia. One of the earliest
incidents involved China sending
its survey patrol vessels to the
Indonesian North Natuna Sea,
escorted by a PLAN warship
destroyer, and threatening local
fishermen.

The region’s militarisation has

intensified in recent years, with
many countries organising joint
military exercises. Indonesia and
the United States organised their
largest ever joint military
exercise, Garuda Shield, which
involved almost 4000 soldiers.
India and Vietnam jointly held a
naval exercise in the South China
Sea. The United States and the
Philippines resumed the annual
Balikatan military exercise that
had been postponed due to the
pandemic. Meanwhile, China also
organised one of its largest ever
military exercises with Russia,
involving 10,000 troops.
The military presence of non-
claimant countries in the South
China Sea has also increased.
Adding to the US Freedom of
Navigation program, the United
Kingdom, Germany and France
have all sent navy vessels to the
region. It seems that these
countries want to send a message
to Beijing that they are ready to
respond to any provocation in the
South China Sea.

But the real bombshell for the

region was the announcement on
15 September 2021 of AUKUS, a
security and technology alliance
between Australia, the United
Kingdom and the United States.
The agreement will see the United
States and the United Kingdom
assist Australia in developing a
nuclear-powered submarine
program.

Within Southeast Asia, the

reception has been mixed. ASEAN
countries have long held differing
positions regarding Western
military presence in the region,
and views on AUKUS have fallen
along similar lines. Countries that
tend to welcome a Western
military presence in the region,
such as Singapore, Vietnam and
the Philippines have responded
positively, or at least neutrally, to
AUKUS. Countries like Indonesia
and Malaysia, which were already
suspicious of such a presence,
have been more sceptical.
The military implications of
AUKUS are immense, especially in
the South China Sea. While the
Philippines argues that a stronger
Western presence could deter
more aggressive moves from
China in the South China Sea,
Indonesia points out that AUKUS
could provoke an arms race in the
region and be detrimental to
nuclear non-proliferation. AUKUS
may not threaten Indonesia or any
other Southeast Asian country
directly, but it will provoke a
response from Beijing and
intensify US–China military rivalry
in the region. Such heightened
military competition will put
Southeast Asian countries in an
insecure position.

Soon after the announcement, the

Malaysian Defense Minister
Hishammuddin Hussein stressed
the need to maintain dialogue with
China. China’s response to AUKUS
will be an important indicator of
the possibility of war or escalation
in the South China Sea. So far,
Chinese Foreign Ministry
Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the
agreement is ‘extremely
irresponsible’ and ‘seriously
undermines regional peace and
stability and intensifies the arms
race’.
While some analysts argue that
open war in the South China Sea
remains unlikely, the region
should anticipate all possibilities.
In 2020, when Chinese President Xi
Jinping visited a military base in
Guangdong, one of his key
messages to the soldiers was to
‘put all [their] minds and energy
on preparing for war’ and
‘maintain a state of high alert’.
China seems to be preparing for a
worst-case scenario. In response to
AUKUS, the country will likely
accelerate its military
modernisation.
In any case, the AUKUS
announcement has led to
heightened uncertainty in the
region, pushing all countries to
prepare for any scenario in the
coming years.