AUKUS spells trouble for NPT

On September 15 2021, Australia, the United Kingdom (U.K) and the United States (U.S), announced a new ‘trilateral security arrangement’, AUKUS, to contain the growing maritime power of China in the Asia-Pacific region, the emerging theatre of contest among great powers.

AUKUS will entail collaboration between the three countries in the areas of artificial intelligence, cyber, quantum technologies, and undersea capabilities including underwater sensors and drones. The broader aim of this security arrangement is to give the U.S and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region a qualitative technological edge as they compete with China.

Under AUKUS, Australia will acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines over next two years to be built in South Australia. Canberra will also purchase a range of conventional long-range strike weapons including Tomahawk cruise missiles and precision-strike guided weapon system.

For Australia, it is a decision that makes it part of the larger design of the U.S-led efforts to contain the rising power of China.

From an operational perspective, SSN class submarines are stealthier, faster and have more endurance undersea. In contrast, SSK submarines have to resurface within weeks to clear exhaust and recharge their batteries. The SSN fleet would enable Australia to project power from shipping lanes across Malacca Straits to Taiwan, Beijing’s choke points through which 80% of China’s energy supplies and trade passes. Additionally, nuclear-powered submarines can potentially deliver “conventional missiles to mainland China, as far away as from east of Philippines.”

AUKUS offers the U.S many advantages in including the deployment of its naval capabilities from a network of bases from Hawaii in the east to Guam, Okinawa in Japan and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. With the addition of Australia, the U.S navy will also be able to undertake naval operations from Australian bases, thus extending the range of America’s ability to project power across the Indo-Pacific region.

But the most important implication of AUKUS relates to the potential use of nuclear power submarines for war-fighting purposes. Under AUKUS, Australia will become the seventh power that would own nuclear-powered submarines and would severely undermine Canberra’s credentials to promote global disarmament. As a signatory of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Canberra has compromised its long-standing role as an advocate of nuclear disarmament and opened the way for other countries that have signed NPT to seek nuclear submarines as a way to acquire enriched uranium to build atomic weapons.

China has been unnerved by AUKUS because of the possibility of the outbreak of a new round of potential arms race triggered by AUKUS.

Beijing has described AUKUS as ‘extremely irresponsible’ which ‘seriously damages regional peace and stability, increases arms race and undermines global non-proliferation treaty’. For Beijing, AUKUS reflects a “cold war” mentality, which is out of sync with the new realities of power. Beijing has termed such alliances as a cover for U.S hegemony and called Australia a ‘running dog’ of U.S imperialism. Chinese analysts have warned Canberra of “severe punishment”, an apparent reference to make Australia a target of Chinese missile strikes in the event of conflict with the U.S.

Beijing is acutely aware of the fact that right now, “all of the 52 American attack vessels are nuclear-powered and only seven of 62 attack submarines of China are nuclear-propelled.” With new SSNs coming to Australia, China would be compelled to build and deploy additional nuclear-powered vessels to maintain a favorable balance in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing has few allies in the Indo-Pacific region and AUKUS will force China to spend more on its naval capabilities, which will be huge, costly affairs and a drain on Beijing’s shrinking economy due to Covid 19 and supply chain problems.

Moscow has voiced similar concerns over AUKUS. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rubakov has publicly stated that AUKUS poses a serious threat to the non-proliferation regime, as the deal would incentivize the NPT members to leapfrog the international consensus not to seek nuclear weapons through enriched and weapon grade uranium.

Moscow is apprehensive about the fact that AUKUS will allow Australia “after 18 months of consultations and several years of attempts, to obtain nuclear-powered submarines in sufficient numbers to become one of the top five countries for this type of armaments”, Russia’s TASS news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

It would be very interesting to see how the next meeting of NPT in early January will tackle the non-proliferation concerns raised by AUKUS. AUKUS has already caused tremendous strain between Paris and Washington because of Canberra’s decision to cancel its billion dollar deal for French submarines in favour of a fleet of SSBNS from the U.S and U.K.

There are many who argue that NATO is increasingly becoming defunct and it would be logical that Washington would like it to be replaced by a more “trustworthy” alliance arrangement involving United States, Australia and U.K. Whether this arrangement would hold beyond first term of the Biden Presidency is anybody’s guess.

The writer is a political scientist and defense analyst.