Australia to get nuclear-powered submarines as part of AUKUS alliance strategy

AUKUS is a pact between the U.S., Australia and Britain to share nuclear submarine technology amid a broader allied push against China's ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.

Leaders of the U.S., Australia and Britain are set to unveil plans to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines on Monday, in a major push against China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.

U.S. President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will endorse details of the so-called AUKUS project, which was first announced in 2021, at the U.S. naval base in San Diego, California, principal home port of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Under the agreement, Australia will buy three U.S. Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines in the early 2030s, with an option to buy two more if needed, U.S. officials said.

The agreement, known as the AUKUS pact, will have multiple stages with at least one U.S. submarine visiting Australian ports in the coming years and end in the late 2030’s with a new class of submarines being built with British designs and American technology.

The agreement will also see a force of U.S. and British submarines deployed in Western Australia, to help train Australian crews and bolster deterrence.

China’s growing militarization of the South China Sea, which Beijing claims most of despite international maritime law that accords territory to Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and other nations, is an increasing point of friction with the United States.

The United States aimed to start these rotational deployments with a single submarine in Western Australia from 2027 and within a few years it was expected to involve four U.S. submarines and one British.

AUKUS will be the first time Washington has shared nuclear-propulsion technology since the 1950s, when it partnered with Britain. Currently no party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty other than the five countries the NPT recognizes as weapons states – the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France – has nuclear submarines.