Australia’s ‘barking mad’ bet on nuclear submarines – the AUKUS deal five years on

Five years after the pact between Australia, the US, and the UK was announced, three of its key architects assess its progress toward its goals, including arming Australia with nuclear-powered submarines to deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

When the trilateral security partnership between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia was announced in 2021, few were as bewildered as defence and security analyst Hugh White. I thought to myself “this is barking mad, this won’t work”. But I was very much in a…