Pentagon launches review of AUKUS submarine deal
The move by the Pentagon is a major blow to Australia and comes days before Anthony Albanese is expected to have his first in-person meeting with Donald Trump on the G7 sidelines.
The Pentagon is reviewing the AUKUS partnership with Australia and the UK, saying it needs to ensure the agreement is aligned with Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda and noting it was an initiative of the former administration.
In a statement provided to The Australian, the Pentagon confirmed the review – reportedly being led by Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby – was aimed at ensuring AUKUS served the best interests of the United States.
“The department is reviewing AUKUS as part of ensuring that this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the President’s America First agenda,” the statement said.
“As (Defence) Secretary (Pete) Hegseth has made clear, this means ensuring the highest readiness of our servicemembers, that allies step up fully to do their part for collective defence, and that the defence industrial base is meeting our needs,” the Pentagon said.
“This review will ensure the initiative meets these common sense, America First criteria.”
Mr Albanese will now come under increased pressure to obtain commitments of support for the AUKUS agreement at this meeting, with the Australian Prime Minister having already downplayed a request from Mr Hegseth to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP.
Australia has also already made the first $500m payment to the United States under the AUKUS deal when Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles met with his US counterpart in February.
Under the AUKUS arrangement, the US has agreed to provide Australia with between three and five nuclear-powered Virginia class submarines. But concerns have emerged over whether the US industrial base can meet the target of producing the required 2.33 Virginia-class submarines per year – the rate needed to replace the boats sold to Australia.
Mr Colby last year told the Policy Exchange think tank in the UK that he would have been “quite sceptical” about signing off on the AUKUS agreement, and argued the benefits and viability of the arrangement was “questionable.”
He also made clear he had concerns about the ability of the US defence industrial base to keep up with its target in order to provide Australia with the submarines. Mr Colby is also known to be worried about whether the Virginia class submarines provided to Australia would be available in a contingency in the Taiwan Strait.
“My concern is, why are we giving away this crown jewel asset when we most need it,” he told Policy Exchange. “AUKUS is only going to lead to more submarines collectively in 10, 15, 20 years, which is way beyond the window of maximum danger, which is really in this decade.”
Mr Colby made clear in his nomination hearing earlier this year that he expected Australia to increase its defence spending, arguing that “main concern the United States should press with Australia, consistent with the president’s approach, is higher defence spending.”
“Australia is currently well below the 3 per cent level advocated for NATO by NATO Secretary-General [Mark] Rutte, and Canberra faces a far more powerful challenge in China,” he said.
Mr Courtney, the ranking member of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee and the co-chair of the Friends of Australia Caucus, warned that “to abandon AUKUS – which is already well underway – would cause lasting harm to our nation’s standing with close allies and certainly be met with great rejoicing in Beijing.”
He said the Trump administration “certainly has the right to review the trilateral AUKUS mission, but as the recent UK government’s defence review determined, this is a defence alliance that is overwhelmingly in the best interest of all three AUKUS nations.”
“It is worth noting that all three countries have completed joint nuclear submarine training with a significant number of sailors and officers, with more in the pipeline; Australian sailors and naval operators are joint-crewing U.S. Virginia class submarines; joint U.S.-Australian submarine repair work is happening in Guam and Hawaii; and the U.S. submarine industrial base delivered two attack submarines in 2024, two will be delivered in 2025, and two more in 2026,” he said.
“To walk away from all the sunk costs invested by our two closest allies – Australia and the United Kingdom – will have far-reaching ramifications on our trustworthiness on the global stage and is a direct contradiction to the administration’s ‘America First, but not alone’ goal of countering aggression from China, Russia, and other adversaries.”
But there were mixed signals coming out of Washington on the AUKUS agreement on Wednesday. News of the Pentagon review came as the United States Secretary of the Navy under President Donald Trump, John Phelan, provided written testimony to the House Armed Services Committee backing in the trilateral security partnership.
“AUKUS is an opportunity to strengthen deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. AUKUS will bring our three countries closer together by reinforcing our collective diplomatic, economic, technological, and military strength,” Mr Phelan said. “This partnership increases the stability of the Indo-Pacific region through improved deterrence. AUKUS Pillar I provides the United States a rotational submarine presence in Western Australia and a strategically important location for rearming and repairing our submarines.”
“AUKUS is what allied deterrence should look like: shared commitments, mutual investments and results that enhance — not burden — American readiness. We will hold to that standard as we build this partnership for the long haul.”
Mr Phelan, a businessman and key backer of Mr Trump, said that the US, the UK and Australia were all committed to the AUKUS “Optimal Pathway” – the phased, commitment-based plan aimed at delivering Canberra a nuclear-powered submarine capability.
“More than 100 Royal Australian Navy uniformed personnel are in the US training pipeline or already serving aboard US SSNs,” he said. “Meanwhile, more than 120 Australian civilian submarine maintenance personnel are training at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility.”
Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, John Lee, told The Australian he believed the future of the AUKUS submarine deal was in peril but that the agreement would not be abandoned.
He warned that low levels of Australian defence spending were clearly a problem for the Trump administration.
“I do not think the AUKUS agreement itself will be scrapped in the sense that a military-tech-industrial sharing agreement will remain. However, the future of Pillar 1 is less certain,” he said. “The primary US DoD concern is the slow rate of nuclear submarine production and whether selling these to Australia will seriously diminish its own capabilities that it believe it needs in East Asia.”
“I suspect the DoD review will also effectively be an audit of the contribution Australia is making to the alliance in a military sense. This looks at both Australian capability and intent or what we are prepared to do in any contingency.”
“Our low level of defence spending is clearly an issue for the Trump administration.” Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies at ANU, John Blaxland, said Mr Colby had a “US-first, zero sum approach to the submarine allocation.”
“For him, the question is – we can’t be one hundred per cent sure that, in a conflict, Australia would be on our side. Which is true.”
But Professor Blaxland told The Australian “any self-respecting democracy” could not commit to something in advance which was outside the scope of their treaty obligations – in this case, the ANZUS alliance. “Taiwan is not in the treaty,” he said.
“For the Colby review to seriously question the efficacy of allocating SSNs (attack submarines) to Australia would, in my view, have a deeply counter-productive effect.”
Professor Blaxland, who is based in Washington, said that Australia “had so many things to be worried about with this administration so far. This adds to the list.” But he said it was important not to panic.
“We are stuck. We can’t pull this spear out. You do more damage pulling it out than pushing through. We’re already in. We are in up to our necks.”
“So all we have to do is not panic – not be Chicken Little. The sky is not falling. It’s stormy. But not falling. And (we must) be assertive and very articulate in making the case that it is in America’s interest to pursue the AUKUS deal and to follow through on the commitment to allow Australia to purchase at market price the SSNs we plan to purchase.”
“That will help to consolidate Australia as a reliable ally of the US.”
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