AUKUS
Based on Wikipedia: AUKUS
In September 2021, Australia did something almost unthinkable: it publicly humiliated one of its closest allies, torpedoed a fifty-billion-dollar defense contract, and announced it would acquire nuclear-powered submarines — all in the same breath. The French government learned about the cancellation of their submarine deal just hours before the rest of the world did. France's foreign minister called it "a stab in the back." Paris recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra for the first time in the history of the alliance.
What could possibly justify such diplomatic carnage?
The answer is AUKUS, pronounced "AWK-us" — a security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States that represents one of the most significant shifts in Indo-Pacific security architecture since the end of World War II. At its core, AUKUS is about one thing: countering China's growing military power in the Pacific Ocean.
The Submarine Problem
To understand why Australia was willing to burn bridges with France, you need to understand the tyranny of distance that shapes Australian defense thinking.
Australia is a vast continent with a small population — about 26 million people spread across a landmass roughly the size of the contiguous United States. Its nearest major ally, the United States, is over 9,000 miles away. Its nearest potential adversary, China, is much closer. And between Australia and Asia lies an archipelago of thousands of islands stretching from Indonesia through the Philippines to Japan — waters that any hostile power would need to control to threaten Australia directly.
Submarines are the ultimate tool for controlling these waters. They can lurk undetected for weeks, strike without warning, and deny entire ocean areas to enemy fleets. But not all submarines are created equal.
Conventional submarines — the kind powered by diesel engines and electric batteries — are relatively cheap and quiet. But they have a fatal flaw: they need to surface regularly to run their engines and recharge their batteries. This makes them vulnerable and limits how far and how long they can operate.
Nuclear-powered submarines are different beasts entirely. They can stay submerged for months at a time, limited only by how much food the crew can carry. They're faster, can travel farther, and can carry more weapons. A nuclear submarine operating from Australia could patrol the South China Sea continuously without ever needing to surface or refuel. A diesel submarine making the same journey would spend half its time just getting there and back.
The French Fiasco
In 2016, Australia signed a deal with Naval Group, a French defense company majority-owned by the French government, to build twelve new submarines. The program was supposed to replace Australia's aging Collins-class fleet — diesel-electric boats that had been in service since the late 1990s.
There was something deeply ironic about this arrangement. The design Australia chose was based on France's Barracuda-class submarine — a nuclear-powered vessel. But Australia wanted a conventional version. So the French had to essentially un-nuclear their submarine design, ripping out the compact nuclear reactor and replacing it with diesel engines and batteries. It was like commissioning a Tesla and asking them to install a gasoline engine.
The project was troubled from the start.
Australia insisted that sixty percent of the work be done locally, which meant building an entirely new shipyard and training a workforce from scratch. Costs ballooned. Delays mounted. By 2021, the estimated price tag had swelled to 90 billion Australian dollars — nearly double the original figure.
More troubling than the money was the timeline. The first submarine wasn't expected until the mid-2030s, and the last one wouldn't arrive until the 2050s. By then, the strategic situation in the Pacific would have transformed beyond recognition. China's naval buildup was proceeding at a pace that made Australia's leisurely submarine program look almost quaint.
The Secret Negotiations
In March 2021, while still publicly committed to the French deal, Australia's navy chief quietly flew to London. Vice Admiral Michael Noonan met with his British counterpart, Admiral Tony Radakin, with a remarkable request: could the United Kingdom and the United States help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines instead?
What followed was one of the most closely guarded diplomatic secrets of recent years. The three nations negotiated for months without France — supposedly one of their closest allies — having any idea what was happening. When Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris that June, Macron personally assured him of France's "full and complete commitment" to the submarine project. Morrison said nothing about the alternative he was already pursuing.
Less than three months later, in September 2021, the leaders of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States appeared together via video link to announce AUKUS. The French submarine deal was dead.
Why Nuclear Changes Everything
Only six countries in the world operate nuclear-powered submarines: the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom — plus India. Australia will become the seventh.
This is not about nuclear weapons. The submarines Australia will acquire are "nuclear-powered," not "nuclear-armed." The reactor provides propulsion, not explosives. The weapons they carry will be conventional torpedoes and missiles.
But the technology itself is extraordinarily sensitive. The reactors use highly enriched uranium — the same material, at the same ninety-three percent enrichment level, used in nuclear weapons. This is why the United States has been so reluctant to share this technology. Washington reportedly turned down a similar request from South Korea, another treaty ally, just a year before agreeing to help Australia.
Why did Australia get special treatment? The Biden administration apparently sought assurances that Australia would cancel the French deal regardless of whether the United States agreed to help — essentially making sure America wasn't being used as an excuse to escape an inconvenient contract. Australia's willingness to burn its relationship with France demonstrated a level of commitment that apparently satisfied Washington.
The AUKUS Architecture
AUKUS has two pillars. Pillar One is the submarines — the headline-grabbing part that caused the diplomatic crisis with France. Pillar Two is almost everything else.
Under Pillar One, Australia will eventually operate at least eight nuclear-powered attack submarines. But "eventually" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The timeline is staggering in its ambition and its delays.
The plan unfolds in phases. First, starting as early as 2027, American and British nuclear submarines will begin rotating through an Australian naval base called HMAS Stirling, near Perth. Australian sailors will embed with American and British crews, learning how to operate and maintain nuclear submarines from the inside.
Second, sometime in the early 2030s, the United States will sell Australia three Virginia-class submarines — vessels that will already have seen six to fifteen years of service in the American fleet. Australia might buy up to two more if needed. These are stopgap measures to ensure Australia doesn't face a capability gap as its Collins-class boats retire.
Third, and most ambitiously, Australia and the United Kingdom will jointly build an entirely new class of submarine called the SSN-AUKUS. The British expect to receive their first one in the late 2030s. Australia won't see theirs until the early 2040s. Australia plans to build five of these boats domestically.
The numbers tell a sobering story. The first truly Australian-built nuclear submarine won't enter service until twenty years after AUKUS was announced. An entire generation of Australian sailors will train, serve, and retire before the program delivers on its central promise.
The Other Pillar
Pillar Two of AUKUS gets far less attention than the submarines, but it may ultimately prove more important — precisely because it will deliver results much faster.
This pillar covers cooperation across eight areas: undersea capabilities (other than crewed submarines), quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, advanced cyber capabilities, hypersonic weapons, electronic warfare, innovation partnerships, and information sharing. It's essentially a framework for the three countries to develop and deploy cutting-edge military technology together.
Quantum computing, for instance, threatens to break the encryption that protects virtually all digital communications. Whoever masters it first gains an enormous intelligence advantage. Hypersonic missiles — weapons that travel at five times the speed of sound or faster — are nearly impossible to intercept with current defenses. China has already deployed them. The United States is scrambling to catch up.
Unlike the submarine program, which will take decades, Pillar Two is designed to produce results within years. It represents a recognition that the technological competition with China isn't something that can wait for the 2040s.
What China Thinks
The official AUKUS announcement never mentioned China by name. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament that the partnership was "not intended to be adversarial towards any other power." No one was fooled.
Beijing's response was immediate and furious. Chinese government spokespeople accused the three nations of adopting a "cold-war mentality" that risked "severely damaging regional peace and stability." The criticism carried an irony that Beijing apparently didn't appreciate: China's own aggressive naval buildup, island-building in disputed waters, and military threats against Taiwan were precisely what had driven Australia into America's nuclear-powered arms.
The geographic reality is stark. China is building the largest navy in the world by number of ships. It has constructed artificial islands in the South China Sea and militarized them with missiles and aircraft. It conducts regular military exercises simulating an invasion of Taiwan. Against this backdrop, Australia's decision to acquire long-range nuclear submarines looks less like aggression than like prudent self-defense.
The Geelong Treaty and Beyond
In June 2025, the United Kingdom announced it would build up to twelve SSN-AUKUS submarines to replace its current Astute-class fleet. This represents a major expansion of British submarine capacity, with a new boat scheduled to be built every eighteen months. A month later, Britain and Australia signed the Geelong Treaty — a fifty-year bilateral defense agreement designed to facilitate cooperation on building Australia's submarines.
Fifty years. That's the timeframe these nations are committing to. The Geelong Treaty will outlast the careers of every politician who signed it, every military officer who will implement it, and quite possibly several of the submarines themselves. It's a bet that the strategic competition with China will define international relations for the rest of the twenty-first century.
The Nuclear Question
Australia has never had nuclear power plants. The country has abundant coal, natural gas, and increasingly solar and wind power. Nuclear energy is actually prohibited by Australian law. This creates an awkward situation: Australia is about to operate nuclear reactors at sea while banning them on land.
The submarines will use reactors that never need refueling during their entire service lives — a convenience that avoids the need for Australia to develop a domestic nuclear fuel cycle. But critics, including Australia's Green Party, worry about loopholes. Where will the radioactive waste go when the submarines are decommissioned? Could the technology and materials eventually enable Australia to produce nuclear weapons if it chose to? The government has offered assurances, but the concerns persist.
These questions matter beyond Australia's borders. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Australia has signed, is designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons-grade materials. By acquiring highly enriched uranium for submarine reactors, Australia is walking a fine line. American officials have emphasized this is a "one-off" arrangement that won't be extended to other countries. But if Australia can get nuclear submarines, why not South Korea? Why not Japan? Why not Saudi Arabia?
The precedent AUKUS sets may reverberate for decades.
The Meaning of AUKUS
Strip away the technical details, and AUKUS reveals something profound about how the world's democracies view the coming decades.
For Australia, it represents an acknowledgment that the comfortable post-Cold War era — when trade with China fueled prosperity while American power guaranteed security — is ending. Canberra is choosing sides, and it's choosing the side that speaks English.
For the United Kingdom, AUKUS is post-Brexit validation. Having left the European Union, Britain was searching for a new role in the world. Here was proof that it could still sit at the big table, bringing nuclear technology and centuries of submarine expertise to a partnership with the world's superpower.
For the United States, AUKUS demonstrates a willingness to share its most sensitive military secrets with trusted allies — but only those it trusts completely. The message to other nations is clear: this level of cooperation must be earned through decades of proven loyalty and shared values.
And for China, AUKUS confirms its darkest suspicions about Western intentions. Beijing has long argued that the United States seeks to contain China's rise, to deny it its rightful place as a great power. AUKUS provides evidence for that narrative. Whether it's accurate — whether the West is containing China or simply responding to Chinese aggression — depends largely on where you stand.
The submarines that will eventually emerge from this partnership will patrol waters that are today calm but may not remain so. They will carry torpedoes and missiles designed to sink ships and strike targets on land. They will do so in defense of an order — free navigation, territorial integrity, democratic governance — that China's leaders view as a Western imposition designed to perpetuate their subordination.
AUKUS is a bet on what the twenty-first century will look like. It assumes competition rather than cooperation, conflict rather than convergence. It may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, or it may be simple realism. Either way, the submarines are coming.