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.
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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.”
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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