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Biden adviser warns Trump against scrapping Aukus pact with Australia
A critic of the deal will lead the Pentagon’s assessment of the collaboration this autumn to ensure it aligns with Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda
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An adviser to the Biden administration on the Aukus project to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines warned on Monday against its cancellation amid a Pentagon review, but highlighted a wide range of problems that need to be resolved for it to succeed.
In a joint paper written with a former State Department official, Abraham Denmark recognised the need for “a thorough review of Aukus by the Trump administration”.
But he added: “Should Aukus fail or be scrapped, the United States would become less capable in the Indo-Pacific … its international credibility would be dramatically undercut, deterrence would be undermined, and propaganda from Beijing and Moscow declaring the unreliability of American commitments would gain significant credibility.”
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The paper, written for Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank, listed well-known problems that need to be addressed, including lagging US submarine production rates and whether Australia would use submarines supplied by the US in an Indo-Pacific conflict while depleting US resources in acquiring them.
The report also highlighted the initiative’s high costs – it is estimated it will cost Australia US$240 billion over more than 30 years – a shortage of skilled labour for submarine production in all three countries, and other practical issues such as a lack of progress in ensuring “Aukus visas” to facilitate movement for people involved in the project.
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It also pointed to a vague focus of the so-called Pillar Two of Aukus aimed at collaboration in hi-tech weaponry and said this needs to be narrowed.
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