By David Crowe
The top British adviser on the AUKUS pact has countered the idea that US President Donald Trump can expect pledges from Australia on how to deploy the submarines in times of war, amid reports of new US demands for the deal.
The special adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, also declared the US Navy was “completely committed” to the pact despite fears the Pentagon would rethink the plan after a snap review that began last month.
A Virginia-class fast attack submarine off the coast of Western Australia this year.Credit: AFP
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio played down the significance of the Pentagon’s review, saying it was routine for a new administration to re-examine policies.
“Just because you’re reviewing something doesn’t mean you’re going to necessarily act on it,” Rubio told reporters at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia.
“It means you’re a new administration, and you want to take an audit, an account, about all the policies that you’ve inherited … but our policies on AUKUS have not changed.”
AUKUS was signed under Joe Biden, and Trump has displayed a high level of scepticism about any deals inked by his predecessor.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio takes part in a media briefing during the 58th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Credit: AP
The comments from Lovegrove, who was named by British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as his special adviser for AUKUS, address concerns about new conditions being placed on the deal.
This masthead revealed that the Pentagon official leading the AUKUS review believed Australia should give a guarantee that any submarines supplied by America would be used in any conflict with China.
Sir Stephen Lovegrove, Britain’s special representative on AUKUS.Credit: AP
The issue is crucial for Australia’s $368 billion investment in AUKUS because the deal assumes the purchase of existing Virginia-class submarines from the US over the next decade before new vessels are built.
Asked if the US had demanded the UK to commit its submarines to join US forces under their nuclear sharing agreement – which dates to 1958 – Lovegrove said: “No, it hasn’t.”
He added that Britain under former prime minister Harold Wilson chose not to join the US in the war in Vietnam and this did not undermine the nuclear-sharing agreement.
“That is not to say that there haven’t been moments in which the US has wanted to seek the support from the UK in conflicts that it finds itself in,” he said.
“But I have never seen, in my experience, or seen any evidence, in my time, of the nuclear collaboration agreements playing any part in that whatsoever.”
Lovegrove was speaking to the Stop the World podcast produced by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, after addressing the think tank in Canberra on Wednesday. The podcast will be released on Friday.
In a series of revealing comments about the UK’s confidence in the submarine agreement, Lovegrove said there was good progress on building a new submarine base in Fremantle and this would be vital for the US.
Asked whether the US could build Virginia-class submarines fast enough to be able to sell several to Australia before the AUKUS fleet is designed and built, he said “never bet against America” in its ability to innovate.
He also signalled the agenda for the second pillar of the agreement, saying it needed to focus on a few key priorities rather than ranging across too many technologies. He emphasised work on autonomous underwater vehicles that were uncrewed and used artificial intelligence.
The Pentagon review, which took some US officials by surprise when it was revealed on June 11, has fuelled talk that Trump will demand more money from Australia or place new conditions on the agreement within weeks.
The head of the review, US Department of Defence under-secretary Elbridge Colby, has caused consternation in some quarters with an “America first” approach that can deny help to allies.
Colby has been named as the key official who sought to freeze military supplies to Ukraine last week, while Politico reported he had also argued against a UK naval deployment in Asia.
When a British defence team met Colby and others in the US capital last month, according to the report, he told them they should turn back an aircraft carrier they had sent east.
“He was basically saying, ‘You have no business being in the Indo-Pacific’,” one unnamed official told Politico.
This masthead reported that several officials expect Colby’s report on AUKUS to argue that Australia should add to the $4.7 billion it has pledged to help build up US industrial capacity to manufacture more submarines.
Two other Australian sources, one in the political establishment and one in defence who have both spoken to Colby, said the Pentagon believed Australia should give a public declaration or private guarantee that US-made nuclear submarines would be used in a possible conflict with China.
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles played down the likely impact of the Colby review when visiting London late last month for a meeting with UK Defence Secretary John Healey.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also signalled in recent days that the US could not expect Australia to commit to any conflict automatically.
“I’m a supporter of AUKUS, that’s important,” Albanese said in remarks to the John Curtin Research Centre and obtained by this masthead. “But that doesn’t mean that we are subservient to any other country.”
Lovegrove, a former national security adviser in the UK government, expressed great confidence the AUKUS pact would survive the Colby review and Trump’s response.
“There is a huge bilateral support for AUKUS in the States,” he told the ABC’s 7:30 program this week.
“The US Navy is right behind it. I speak to them a lot. The State Department is very much behind it. Many players in the Defence Department are completely engaged in AUKUS and everything that it brings to the US. So I’m pretty comfortable that we’ll end up with the right answer for the US, for Australia and the UK.”
With Michael Koziol
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