OPINION: The appointment of an Aukus antagonist to head a US review of the program will have major implications here.
The review of Aukus ordered by US President Donald Trump will have many deep and complex implications, all of which will have been discussed by the time this goes to print.
The debate in our Australian news cycle will likely focus on the merits of Aukus, the need for nuclear-powered submarines, if the cost is worth it, and who is to blame politically for the vulnerable position Australia would be left in with no new submarine capability.
All are reasonable debates to some degree, but this column will focus on details likely to get less coverage and may help readers draw their own conclusion as to what lies ahead.
Elbridge Colby is a former US military and intelligence official with prior experience in government during Mr Trump’s first term. He co-founded a think tank called The Marathon Initiative and wrote a book in 2021 titled The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict. These provide some insight into his thinking.
Now the Trump administration’s under-secretary of defense for policy, Mr Colby’s perspective is built upon the concept of a strategy of denial, that the US must deter others from taking power. His positions are firmly focused on the rise of China and issues in the Indo-Pacific, while observing the potentially imminent threats from Russia and North Korea.
“Asia must come first,” he writes.
This perspective was also evident in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, for which Mr Colby played a central development role. It pushed for defence priorities aligned with great-power competition with China and Russia.
In his published works, he argues that conflicts in other regions, such as Middle East, distract the US from maintaining deterrence against China. This is perhaps a contributing factor to recent US miliary sales to Saudi Arabia.
He cites statements by both the Trump and Biden administrations that the US cannot be active in multiple conflicts simultaneously.
Mr Colby argues for peaceful co-existence with China, not seeking US dominance but also preventing Chinese dominance. Interestingly, he advocates doing so with partners, building an alliance in the Indo-Pacific based on a shared resistance to China. He argues that China dominating Asia can lead to Chinese coercing US allies, Chinese control of trade routes, and disruption of the global order.
Some may argue that current US policies and statements unrelated to Aukus or China are doing a fine job of coercing US allies and disrupting global order without Chinese input. Abandoning Aukus will simply exacerbate this.
Mr Colby advocates for US spending on long-range precision strike weapons, cyber resilience, dispersed force posture in the Pacific and, importantly, submarines.
How this perspective aligns with the views of Mr Trump will be interesting. I expect that, given Mr Colby’s appointment to conduct the review, Mr Trump feels a certain amount of loyalty and alignment already, and expects a review coherent with his own world view.
Regardless of the report outcomes, I do not anticipate that independent thinking and objective recommendations were the top of the terms of reference.
In business terms, I imagine Aukus Pillar 1 aligns very neatly with Mr Trump’s thinking. In foreign policy terms, I fear the US president won’t see Australia’s military capability as advantageous to a solely America-first view, with little regard for historical allies.
If Mr Colby, a noted sceptic of Aukus Pillar 1, provides the opportunity, I expect Mr Trump would also enjoy lambasting a deal executed by his predecessor.
The decision to sell the submarines to Australia was approved by the US government in December of 2023, as part of a broader vote on the National Defense Authorization Act. It passed the House of Representatives with 310 in favour and 118 against. Notably, it had bipartisan support, with the in-favour votes coming from 147 Republicans and 163 Democrats. It subsequently passed in the US Senate 87 to 13, again illustrating bipartisan approval.
The house and senate are currently Republican controlled in a deeply divided US political landscape, where all are being conditioned towards absolute loyalty. It increases the importance of the review in shaping the outcome when traditional checks and balances are not entirely independent.
US industrial base capacity, trust in allied relationships, strategies of denial with or without allies, and leveraging hard diplomacy for deal making are about to become critical factors in Australia’s military capability and strategic vulnerabilities for decades to come.
• Kristian Constantinides is general manager of Airflite and was the 2023 recipient of the Minister’s Award for Services to Defence Industry. The opinions expressed are purely his own
