Australia Is Gifting the US Nuclear Subs

The government says that AUKUS is about bringing Australia’s “defense capabilities up to speed.” However, former Labor PM Paul Keating was closer to the mark when he argued that it “is really about, in American terms, the military control of Australia.” Former US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell vindicated this assessment when he candidly admitted that AUKUS will “lock Australia” into US foreign policy.

For now, that means supporting Pentagon plans to “contain and encircle China.” And to play its part in the United States’ aggressive posture, Australia committed to paying US$246 billion for a fleet of “fast-attack” nuclear submarines and an additional US$865 million to arm them with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Labor claims these weapons are defensive; however, as the responsible minister Pat Conroy has admitted, they “can also be used as tools of coercion.” Indeed, Conroy provided Labor’s clearest statement yet on the real intent of AUKUS in a speech at the National Press Club when he said, “Why do we need more missiles? Strategic competition between the United States and China is a primary feature of Australia’s security environment.”

Labor’s official line is that “Australia will always make sovereign, independent decisions as to how [the submarines] are employed.” This is belied by the fact that the United States won’t actually pass control of the nuclear submarines to Australia. Rather, the US will strategically command the Australian-flagged fleet, which will depend on US maintenance facilities, parts, and personnel.

The fact that the United States will control the submarines is why Australian Labor Party (ALP) elder Gareth Evans has warned that AUKUS will greatly diminish Australia’s “sovereign agency in determining how all these assets are actually used.” Former US secretary of state Campbell justified these concerns, stating to a Washington audience that “when submarines are provided from the United States to Australia, it’s not like they’re lost. They will just be deployed by the closest possible allied force.”

To make matters worse, the second pillar of AUKUS will weave technological dependencies through Australia’s weapons and surveillance systems. The government describes Pillar 2  as “a platform for advanced technology cooperation.” But former Australian Army analyst Clinton Fernandes has warned that joint military projects entail hidden costs. For example, Fernandes argues that collaborative investments in cyber-warfare, missile, and artificial intelligence projects will make Australia’s military more dependent on the United States.

Worse, the agreement will see Australia host “the largest concentration of US forces since World War II.” Upgrades to US bases in Australia will accommodate nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, a “rotational force” of US and UK submarines, and nuclear waste management and storage facilities.

Labor says that this buildup will “deter conflict or attempts to coerce Australia by force.” However, as Keating has pointed out, there is no evidence that China has an incentive to attack Australia. Indeed, as foreign affairs expert Sam Roggeveen argues, it’s just as likely that AUKUS will turn Australia into “a bigger target” if a war breaks out in the South China Sea.

Despite these criticisms, the government has not only doubled down on AUKUS, but committed to extending the deal, citing fears of a future conflict with China — fears that David Brophy, a historian of China and Inner Asia, has criticized as paranoid. In August 2024, Labor announced the so-called AUKUS 2.0 agreement, which includes a controversial commitment by Australia to foot the bill for all incidents involving radioactive accidents and waste. Albanese also agreed to an exit clause that lets the United States and UK walk away from AUKUS without refunding the US$6 billion Australia has spent upgrading its shipyards.

Is AUKUS Popular?

It would be convenient to chalk Labor’s endorsement and subsequent expansion of AUKUS up to electoral convenience. After all, most mainstream commentators assume that the deal has widespread popular support.

But research conducted by three broadly pro-AUKUS institutions, the University of Sydney, University of Nottingham, and the United States Studies Centre, shows that the deal lacks a “social license.” And when you delve deeper into polling data, it becomes clear that a hawkish ideology, not electoral pragmatism, is driving Labor’s defense agenda.

The truth is that there isn’t a reliable measure of public support for AUKUS. Rather, as University of Technology Sydney (UTS) professor Wanning Sun observes, the way surveys frame the deal in survey questions “shapes, if not pre-determines” polling outcomes. A lack of interest in and information about foreign policy means that voters rarely have “fully formed — or informed — views when asked a question about AUKUS,” Sun says.

For example, surveys that frame AUKUS in terms of countering a military threat from China — including polling from the Lowy Institute and UTS — show relatively strong support for the agreement. Conversely, the Guardian Australia’s recent Essential Poll — which asked respondents to consider AUKUS in light of Trump’s election victory — shows that 48 percent of voters want Albanese to review the agreement. Sun also highlights a 2023 Essential Poll that found that, when reminded of its US$246 billion cost, only one quarter of Australians backed the nuclear-submarine deal.

That fact that voters are easily swayed by the framing of survey questions casts serious doubt on the idea that AUKUS has strong public support. And when you consider that the government is funding nuclear submarines instead of popular cost-of-living policies, it’s clear that the deal runs against Labor’s electoral interests.

Albanese’s Subimperial Gambit

The uncomfortable reality is that Labor’s support for AUKUS and unwillingness to chart an independent foreign policy agenda show that Albanese and his cabinet are ideologically committed to a unipolar world where the Pentagon reigns supreme.

When Labor was in opposition, it seemed plausible that Albanese backed AUKUS out of electoral pragmatism. But his decision as PM to expand the deal — without a clear electoral motive — shows that the PM and his cabinet are fully in favor of maintaining Australia’s “subimperial” relationship with the United States. This relationship, as Clinton Fernandes explains, positions Australia as “a junior partner and enthusiastic — if anxious — supporter” of US power.

This reality is particularly jarring given Albanese, and the Labor Left in general, have historically opposed US dominance. Indeed, Albanese’s mentor and “father figure,” Gough Whitlam–era Labor minister Tom Uren, was a prominent part of the decades-long movement against uranium mining and nuclear weapons, a campaign he described as a “historical battle for the future of humanity.” After witnessing the atomic bombing of Nagasaki as a prisoner of war, Uren dedicated his life to the peace movement, and was famously arrested in protests against the Vietnam War.

As a young factional warrior, Albanese was a staunch supporter of Uren and his Labor Left allies. This began to change as Albanese and his allies in the “Hard Left” subfaction hegemonized the broader Labor Left, before finally taking over the party’s all-powerful national executive in 2019. And since becoming PM, he has been reborn as a subimperial enforcer of US interests within the ALP, subduing and marginalizing opponents of the government’s hawkish approach to foreign policy.

While maintaining its progressive public image, the Hard Left has a long history of behind-closed-doors collaboration with the Labor Right, which typically championed a more openly pro-US policy. But since Albanese won office, the Hard Left–dominated Labor Left has dispensed with any pretense of difference with the Right. Under the lead of the Hard Left, in addition to backing AUKUS, Labor has passed regressive tax cuts and draconian immigration laws and opened new thermal coal mines.

The Hard Left’s blustering approach to foreign policy was on full display at Labor’s 2023 national policymaking conference when Hard Left–aligned defense industry minister Pat Conroy scuttled an anti-AUKUS motion. While the motion was unlikely to succeed at the infamously stage-managed event, that didn’t stop Conroy from likening its supporters — including blue-collar trade union delegates and Labor branch members — to former conservative PM Robert Menzies, who advocated a policy of appeasement toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

The vitriol that Conroy directed against AUKUS skeptics in the ALP is typical of the contemporary parliamentary Labor Left. With the exception of dissenting Labor Left MP Josh Wilson, the supposedly progressive faction has in federal Parliament wholly embraced a hawkish ideological agenda that was once confined to the Labor Right’s anti-communist fringe.

Albanese Has Tied Himself to Trump

Incoming US secretary of state Marco Rubio says that the Trump administration “very strongly supports” AUKUS. But as Gareth Evans argues, “That will last only until it becomes apparent, probably in the next year or two, that US shipyards are not meeting their own Virginia replacement targets.” Similarly, ALP elder Bob Carr says that the United States’ scuttling of the deal is “almost inevitable.”

Even if there are no production delays in US shipyards, AUKUS still hinges on Trump’s approval, in particular, for Australian policy decisions. As University of Sydney security researcher Dr Stuart Rollo warns, the president’s talk of annexing Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal stems from policy disputes between Trump and allied governments. That’s because, rather than ruling by consent, Trump is “relying on military and economic sticks without any carrots,” Rollo says.

Similarly, University of Birmingham professor Stefan Wolff argues that Danish restrictions on US military operations and Arctic mining have prompted Trump’s talks of annexing Greenland. “US sovereignty over Greenland would forestall any moves by rivals, especially China, to get a foothold on the island,” Wolff says. That’s because US control over Greenland would help Trump loosen China’s stranglehold on the rare earths that US manufacturers need to produce weapons, electric vehicles, and telecommunication infrastructure.

Moreover, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau warns that Trump’s talks of annexing Canada are part of a trade dispute that started when Trump announced he would place tariffs on all Canadian imports unless Ottawa tightened border restrictions. Trudeau has already said that “if push comes to shove” Canada will retaliate by imposing tariffs on US products.

Despite Trump’s aggressive tactics, ALP foreign minister Penny Wong insists that the US-Australian military alliance “is grounded in shared democratic values.” Similarly, Albanese has downplayed concerns that AUKUS could drag Australia into destabilizing conflicts in the Asia-Pacific. “AUKUS is a relationship between nations based upon common values, not a relationship between individual leaders,” he says.

But the truth is that Trump can use AUKUS to shape Australian policy decisions. The president could easily threaten to cancel or delay Australia’s nuclear submarines. Or he could hamper access to US surveillance and military technology, including Tomahawk missiles. And given Trump’s belligerence toward US allies, it would be naive to dismiss the possibility of these scenarios. Of course, speculation along these lines presupposes an Australian government willing to push back against US foreign policy. And so far, both Albanese and Liberal opposition leader Dutton have loyally played their parts as “subimperial adjutants.”

One can only speculate as to how the PM privately reconciles his historic antiwar commitments with his stewardship of AUKUS. Maybe once, Albanese was a sincere pragmatist, telling himself that concessions were a necessary means by which to gain power — power that he would one day use to chart a more progressive course. But pragmatism demanded an accommodation with imperial power, and US imperial power demands loyalty — loyalty that Albanese has given without hesitation.

Now the cost of living crisis is hitting hard, Donald Trump is in the White House, and AUKUS is back in the spotlight. And with an election looming, Albanese has found himself defending nuclear submarines while voters abandon Labor in droves.