Cancel Aukus? The silver linings if Australia's $239 billion submarine deal with the US gets scrapped

When Aukus, the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the UK, and the US, was announced in 2021, the then Australian prime minister Scott Morrison hailed it as “an historic opportunity for the three nations, with like-minded allies and partners, to protect shared values and promote security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.”

Under the deal the US would provide Canberra with three to five Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines, with delivery from 2032 onwards, while Australia would be able to build its own version of a new British “Aukus” submarine by the early 2040s. Not everyone was convinced.

In 2023, the former Australian prime minister Paul Keating called the $239 billion plan the “worst deal in all history” and said, “the proposal is irrational in every dimension”. Last year, a former foreign minister, Gareth Evans, said that “Australia’s no-holds-barred embrace of Aukus is more likely than not to prove one of the worst defence and foreign policy decisions our country has made,” and put its sovereign independence “at profound risk”.

The agreement is currently under a 30-day review by the Trump administration, and since it is being led by US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby, a known Aukus-sceptic, the deal may well be scuttled.

Here’s why I think that would be a positive move, and why other countries should take notice if it does unravel.

Australia previously had a far cheaper deal with France to supply 12 submarines, and when Canberra abruptly cancelled the deal the French were livid, with Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian describing it as “a stab in the back”. To be fair, it had been subject to delays. Nevertheless, the arrival time of the Aukus subs is lengthy, to put it mildly. I’ve talked about this several times with a friend who was a longstanding member of the Australian Government's Foreign Affairs Council, and we agreed that “you’d better be careful with us, we’ve got some top-grade submarines coming in, er, nearly 10 to 20 years” was not the greatest of deterrents to a would-be aggressor.

The Aukus submarines are also too big. Concerns have been raised about how they would operate in Australia’s shallow coastal areas. Mr Keating was clear. The new subs were, he said, “designed to attack in China’s peripheral waters”. The purpose of Aukus, in his view, was to tie Australia “unambiguously, unqualifiedly and solely arraigning itself” to the most China-hawkish of American positions, and the agreement constituted “the last shackle in the long chain the United States has laid out to contain China”.

Quite apart from the issue of sovereignty – it is almost certain Australia will not be able to use these subs without “interoperability” with America – it is unclear if they’re ever going to arrive. Another former Australian foreign minister, Bob Carr, is sure of it. “The evidence is mounting that we’re not going to get Virginia-class subs from the United States,” Mr Carr said in March, “for the simple reason they’re not building enough for their own needs and will not, in the early 2030s, be peeling off subs from their own navy to sell to us”.

This is partly a matter of law. Before transferring any submarines to Australia, the US president must certify that this would not diminish American naval capability. Mr Colby has publicly expressed doubts on this front. But it’s also a matter of inclination. The Department of Defence has said that the review is to ensure “that this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the president’s ‘America first’ agenda”.

We know that “America first” considers itself to be unbound by anything, including international law – as the Trump administration’s strikes on Iran showed. Assuming “America first” continues to be the guiding ideology of a possible JD Vance presidency in the future, why should it keep to the Aukus agreement if it is not deemed in the US’s best interests?

So, I agree with Mr Keating and Mr Evans. Their country is best out of it, and Mr Colby’s review “might very well be the moment Washington saves Australia from itself”, as Mr Keating put it.

The broader point to be taken from this is that many countries need to be thinking about taking care of themselves, including seeking more collective security, rather than relying on an America safety net that may not be there if push comes to shove. For Australia, the only sensible path is to try to build an Asia-Pacific security architecture that includes China.

For Europe, it means looking further ahead of the current war on the continent and imagining Russia as a common neighbour, not an enemy. And for the Middle East, if Mr Trump could assist the creation of a region in which Israel, a Palestinian state, and Iran all live in peace, he would deserve the Nobel prize that he covets.

For now, however, the US President may think he's pulled off a brilliant manoeuvre in terms of Iran and Israel, but his contradictory behaviour inevitably unnerves other countries, some allies perhaps especially so.

On the other hand, if they need to stand on their own feet rather more in the future, that may not be a bad thing – even if it’s a consequence of “America first” in all its stark reality. It’s a lesson Australia is learning. Other countries should take note.