This article was published in AIDN News 2024 / Issue 2

An attempted assassination of an American presidential candidate. An American President declining to run for another term. Intense debate around the next United States administration’s approach to defence and security commitments to allies and friends. Everyone’s got an opinion about what will happen when America goes to the polls in November. But no one can say with any confidence what will happen. Not this far out. It’s entirely uncertain. We’ve seen how the tilt of a head, mid-speech, can be a hinge of history. 

Regardless of what happens, the AUKUS mission remains fixed and clear. But the volatility and turbulence of politics, and the contingency of human events, remind us that AUKUS is primarily a political project. Yes, it’s about nuclear submarines. Yes, it’s a nation building endeavour. Yes, it’s an industrial and technological enterprise. Yes, there’s the physics and the funding. But fundamentally, it is a political project. And for this political project to endure, we need to understand political and national interests. 

If Vice President Kamala Harris is to become the next President, it should be the case that her administration will inherit the current plan and trajectory for the AUKUS optimal pathway. If Donald Trump returns to The White House, when it comes to AUKUS, and our defence ties, there will be no free lunch. We will be asked, what does Australia bring to the table? We will be expected to prove our worth, and step up our defence industrial commitments. We will need to spend more, spend sooner, and spend smarter. 

In 2022, my colleague, Senator James Paterson, and I met with Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri—who the New Yorker identified as part of the emerging New Right, along with Senator J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee. Senator Hawley said something that stuck with me: ‘we’ve got a lot happening here in the US; you need to step up and take care of business in your neck of the woods.’ That view, that Australia needs to step up and take care of business, is now mainstream in the Republican Party. This is a cure for any apathy on AUKUS. 

So where to from here? History remains a sure guide in times of uncertainty. And history’s hard truths can teach us enduring realities. Here are a few for Australia’s defence, and for AUKUS: 

HARD TRUTH 1: Alliances will always matter to Australia—we are a trading nation and vulnerable to threats to the international system. We have always sought to build security coalitions with other democratic maritime powers—especially the United Kingdom and the United States—so we have consistently supported wider strategic efforts, in major wars and limited campaigns. With the goal of deterring the next major war, AUKUS is the latest commitment in this tradition. The wars of the 20th century reminds us of why teaming up with our friends is so important. 

HARD TRUTH 2: Our naval power must be strong enough to force an adversary to change their battle plans. We can learn from the Royal Australian Navy prior to the First World War. After the 1909 Imperial Conference, Australia invested heavily in its own Fleet Unit, centred on the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, which arrived in Sydney in late 1913. The battlecruiser was supported by light cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. The deterrent impact of that investment changed the war plans of the German East Asiatic Squadron, which stayed well clear of our waters, fearing an engagement with our upgunned fledgling fleet! 

HARD TRUTH 3: We must be able to survive a surprise first strike by an adversary. We must not forget the surprise attack on Darwin on 19 February, 1942. It should inspire our strategic imagination to consider what a modern-day surprise first strike might look like, and what damage Australia might expect to sustain. The reach of missiles, drones, submarines, and cyber capabilities means we can’t limit our imagination to our northern approaches. The Maginot Line in France and Fort Siloso in Singapore remind us that our adversaries rarely accept our planning assumptions—especially those ossified in Defence White Papers. 

HARD TRUTH 4: We know how to provide strategic depth to our partners, it’s our comparative advantage. The US Navy operated massive submarine bases out of Perth and Albany during the Second World War. We conducted battle damage repairs on HMS Illustrious—a Royal Navy aircraft carrier—out of the Captain Cook graving dock in Sydney during 1945. We also hosted up to a million US military personnel as they staged for victory in the Pacific. We have an abundance of land and natural supplies, and our great distance gives allies a degree of safety and warning, as seen with Pine Gap, the US Marine Corps presence in Darwin, and the national lay down of AUKUS. Real estate and geography remain fundamental. 

HARD TRUTH 5: We must be able to manufacture military equipment. Ever since the decline and death of the car industry in Australia—the workers, the skills, the factories, the supply chains—we’ve had a crisis of confidence about our ability to make complex things as a nation. We must regain this lost confidence and capacity—at speed and at scale. Many in Australian defence industry are leading this push. It’s been done before. Essington Lewis showed us how we can fire up the foundries of freedom in the Second World War. We can do it again. But the Commonwealth must back our people and businesses. Political leadership matters. 

Let’s be bold. Australians have always punched above our weight. But now is the time for us to bulk up, and grow our weight. Much has been achieved, but there is much more to be done. AUKUS, and our national security, needs us to spend more, spend sooner, and spend smarter. The alternative costs, when deterrence fails, are unaffordable in comparison. AUKUS turns three in September. And soon the President and two Prime Ministers who founded it, will have left office. 

I said before that AUKUS is a political project, and the political realities are constantly changing, as the US presidential campaign has shown. That’s why we can’t take AUKUS for granted; we need to keep building upon our mutual interests, even as the politics shifts with electoral cycles. No one said this would be easy.